


to build a home

by jaekyu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Families of Choice, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Single Parent Suh Youngho | Johnny, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26251933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: “Hey baby,” Johnny whispers to Donghyuck, leaning so close to him their noses almost touch. It’s the first thing Johnny’s ever said to Donghyuck. The first words Johnny’s ever said to his baby. “I’m your daddy. Isn’t that so amazing? You’re my baby and that makes me your daddy."*in which Johnny learns the definition of family is a little looser than he had previously thought, and just because it’s not quite the same as everyone else's doesn’t mean it’s any less special.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Past Suh Youngho | Johnny/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 229
Kudos: 718





	1. oh, you got light in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> yes. yes it's a fic where johnny is a single dad raising a baby hyuck and how he and taeyong navigate their blossoming relationship in that sort of scenario. yes, it's a lot of self-indulgent scenes of johnny and his baby. yes, it's made my own baby fever even worse. we're all suffering together here. would i call this fluffy? idk. lot's of childcare. but also some sadness. it's gonna be a journey through many emotions.
> 
> five is my tentative chapter count, though that may increase to six depending on how this goes. we'll see. i already have at least half of this written, so do not! worry about that! but i'm also not 100% on how often i'll be updating this. sort of depends on how easily i can put a bow on this guy and finish it up, especially considering i'm also working on a few fic fests atm. ideally, you can expect an update? roughly once a week? yeah. that sounds reasonable. 
> 
> for now, enjoy chapter one of this fic that has ate and ate and ate my brain. hopefully you enjoy!
> 
> thank yooooou to alex for reading this over and also letting me ramble ad nauseum about how much i was obsessed with the whole idea of this fic. as expected, you continue to be wonderful.

__home is where I want to be_ _  
__but I guess I'm already there_ _  
**— **THIS MUST BE THE PLACE** , **Talking Heads 

*

The first time Johnny meets Donghyuck is a day that has shifted from cold to warm, one of those unpredictable autumn days, in early October. The sky is clouded and grey in the morning, but by afternoon is an unimpeded crystal blue.

Donghyuck is already four months old and Johnny doesn’t think he’s ever been more nervous for anything in his life.

(This is all a very, very long story that can be summarized as follows: Johnny moved to Korea from the U.S. after high school to pursue music and never really figured his life out. He’s a little fish in a big, big pond or whatever. When he was twenty-one, almost twenty-two, and still living in Korea, he met Jieun and he liked her a lot and it was easy to just start sort of sleeping with her. They had no grand plans for their time together. Johnny was DJ-ing most nights at little clubs, trying to insert himself in the right places with the right people, to just find his way into the industry, and Jieun was still in college. By the time Johnny was twenty-three, he was sharing a three bedroom apartment with Jaehyun and he and Jieun had sort of drifted, in the natural way that relationships that fail to establish proper parameters tend to do. And, it turns out, by twenty-three, Johnny was somebody's dad without even being aware of it. It turns out Johnny had a son, a little summer baby who had a mom who was trying her best but couldn’t really manage, and in a moment of weakness she had finally found Johnny’s number and called him late into the night and confessed. _I have something to tell you_ , she had murmured into the phone, voice small and staticky, and Johnny could never have anticipated what she was going to tell him.)

Donghyuck is napping — Johnny’s pretty sure that is a baby's main pastime — wrapped in a blanket printed with ducks. He just might be the tiniest thing Johnny’s ever seen. Jieun hands him to Johnny and he’s even tinier up close and, in Johnny’s grip, he feels much more fragile and breakable than he did when Johnny had just been watching Jieun hold him.

“Oh,” Johnny breathes, for lack of anything else to really say. He is overwhelmed — a happiness he can’t temper and a fear he wishes would subside melting together inside of him, filling him up until he’s worried it might boil over. “He doesn’t really look like me,” Johnny says to Jieun, and what he means is Donghyuck barely looks like a person. He’s just a blob of soft, wrinkly pink skin and a little bit of hair, swathed in blankets and always asleep, or about to fall asleep, or just waking up from sleep.

“Yeah, well,” Jieun holds her own arms, looking awkward. “He’s yours. I promise.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Johnny replies, because it’s really not. He didn’t quite realize it before, but now that the moment has come and gone and washed over Johnny, he can understand it better; seeing Donghyuck was like finding the right key for a lock. Something snapped open inside of Johnny’s heart and his baby immediately filled the new space. God, yeah, _his_ baby. The words rattle around Johnny’s skull, buzzing, _my baby, my baby, my baby_.

“I promise,” Johnny repeats Jieun’s words back to her. So she knows, so she doesn’t think he doesn’t mean it. “I promise I didn’t mean it like that. I know — I know he’s mine.”

Donghyuck’s little mouth stretches into a wide yawn. Everything about him is so small in every way but every little movement he makes feels like it shatters the earth Johnny stands on.

He imagines the way his mom must have felt when she was him for the first time. It makes him warm all over. All of this — it’s unbelievable. It’s all-consuming. It’s beautiful and scary and intimidating and wondrous all at once.

“Hey baby,” Johnny whispers to Donghyuck, leaning so close to him their noses almost touch. It’s the first thing Johnny’s ever said to Donghyuck. The first words Johnny’s ever said to his baby. “I’m your daddy. Isn’t that so amazing? You’re my baby and that makes me your daddy.”

Donghyuck makes one of those little baby noises that Johnny isn’t sure if he’s ever heard in real life, only in movies and TV shows.

He wonders what he ever did to deserve something this special.

*

Johnny kind of wants to be a dad (not _kind of_ , he does — but the velocity at which that conclusion came to him is a little jarring, although the addition of _kind of_ to the thought helps soften the blow, lest Johnny’s brain start to leak out of his ears). Jieun does not want to be a mom.

He doesn’t fault her for it. Johnny doesn’t think he could never be mad at someone who gave him something as precious as Donghyuck. He doesn’t know what it was like for her; to be all alone through all of it, to be looked at with disdain by strangers for not being married, what her family might have said to her. Jieun mentions none of it and Johnny doesn’t ask. She tells him simply that she tried, she tried so hard, and that’s why she didn’t call Johnny even once. Because she thought she could do it alone, she was determined to do it alone. Now she’s not sure she can do it at all.

“I know life doesn’t work that way,” Jieun’s voice is tight. Donghyuck sleeps against Johnny’s chest, warm and real, and Jieun gently pets his head. “I know I made a decision and I can’t just — I can’t just _go back_ on it. He’s — he’s a whole person, y’know? You can’t just go back on a whole person you made. But I’m,” she falters. There is a long pause where Jieun breathes methodically, and then she starts speaking again, “but I’m afraid I wouldn’t love him enough. I can’t put a baby through that. Through thinking that I didn’t want him but he’s — he’s stuck with me, or something. So, if you want him — if you want him he’s yours.”

“I want him.”

There is no hesitation to falter Johnny’s voice when he says it. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more.

*

It’s a long process that Johnny is entirely unfamiliar with. He knows he’s going to have to get a lawyer, probably, and get his mom to send him a lot of important documents he might have left behind in Chicago. He’s on all of Donghyuck’s own official documents as his father, which helps, but it’s going to be a long and complicated process to get this whole thing sorted out.

But that’s not something that needs to happen right now. Right now, Jieun supplies Johnny with a diaper bag full of Donghyuck’s essentials, a collapsible playpen and a car seat, and she lets Johnny take Donghyuck home with him.

The playpen stays in the trunk of Johnny’s car. Instead of using it, he lays Donghyuck in his own bed (and, for what might be the first time in his adult, bachelor life, Johnny wonders about the last time he washed his sheets) and lays down beside his baby.

Donghyuck is such a good baby. Johnny must have the best baby in the whole world, he thinks. Donghyuck hasn’t cried much. Only a little bit of fussing in the car and it was totally the worst thing that ever happened to Johnny, for a split second, until Johnny’s instincts kicked in and he pulled over onto the side of the road, pulled his baby out of his car seat and rocked him back and forth and back to sleep.

“You’re not used to the car much, huh, Hyuckie?” Johnny had said, shifting swiftly from foot to foot until Donghyuck’s wailing dissipated into little hiccups. “That’s better. I don’t like it when you cry, baby. I’m gonna make sure you cry as little as possible. Because I love you.”

Now, next to Johnny in Johnny’s bed in his messy room, Donghyuck sleeps soundly, swaddled just the way Jieun had shown Johnny how to do before he took his baby home. Johnny thinks maybe he should take advantage of the peace and quiet; maybe he should do some reading or, like, Google something. He knows there are a million and one books for expectant parents. What about un-expectant parents? People usually prepare for this kind of thing for months. Johnny’s had just a little over forty-eight hours pass between becoming aware he had a whole, real, living and breathing son to being in possession of that son.

But that’s okay, Johnny will figure it out, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. And as soon as he can take his eyes off his little sleeping baby he’ll do some reading. He’ll Google something. He’ll read the back of the container of formula Jieun gave him to figure out how to make it. As soon as he can stop staring at his baby.

*

Johnny calls his mom.

She’s more understanding than Johnny could have even really hoped for. Or, maybe not understanding, she doesn’t really understand. But she’s accepting — maybe that’s a better word — and enthusiastically so. She cries the whole time Johnny tries to lay the whole situation out for her, then cries even harder when Johnny is finished and he suggests they hang up and Facetime instead, so she can see her grandson.

It’s kind of hard to coordinate but eventually Johnny ends up with Donghyuck balanced on his legs, which are propped up against the table in the living room while Johnny reclines against the couch. His mom answers quickly when he calls her, and she’s not crying anymore, but when Johnny flips the camera to back-facing so she can see Donghyuck, she makes a little noise like she might start again.

“Eomma. This is Hyuckie. Donghyuck. He’s my baby.”

She sighs. Johnny can still see her on his phone screen. She presses a hand to her chest and sighs again.

Last night, Johnny plugged in _what to expect from a four-month old_ into an internet search and read up a bit. One of the things he read told him Donghyuck would start to become more aware of his surroundings by this point. Johnny can see the proof of that now; Donghyuck perks up when Johnny’s mom coos at him, making a high-pitched squeaky baby noise. His chubby little arms that look like bread rolls flail a bit and Johnny has the cutest baby ever, he thinks, sitting there all chubby-cheeked in his little onesie, the face of a cartoon sun staring up from his chest.

“He looks like you,” she says to Johnny, between cooing Donghyuck’s name at him and watching him react over and over.

“You think so?” Johnny asks, and his mom nods. “His mom gave me some ultrasound pictures,” he continues, “so I’ll make copies and send some to you.” Johnny’s already put them up on his fridge, held up by the only magnet he and Jaehyun own.

Johnny watches his mom watch his baby through a phone screen and aches to have her near. He wishes, desperately, that she wasn’t on the other side of the planet. He’d love for her to hold his baby, to soothe his fears that sometimes creep up into his mind and nag at his brain. She took such good care of Johnny when he was a baby, he knows. He was never in want of anything, and he wishes terribly that she could be around to transfer that knowledge and energy of what it means to be a good parent.

Johnny thinks he could be a good dad. He’d do anything to be a good dad. But sometimes he gets scared.

He’s scared and he wants his mom. Wants to confess his fears to her and have her gather him in a hug, kiss his forehead, and tell him that it’ll be okay. He doesn’t know how they can do all of that through a phone screen. He doesn’t know how to tell her he’s almost afraid to touch Donghyuck’s bare skin with his own bare hands, like Johnny might shatter him, or get him sick, or hurt him. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s never loved something so much before, never loved anything so badly that if anything bad ever happened to it, it would ruin him. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Bad stuff will happen to Donghyuck. It’s an inevitability.

What will Johnny do on the days Donghyuck will spend crying without repose? What will he do when Donghyuck gets sick? What if Johnny does the wrong thing? There’s a million and one ways he could screw this up and Johnny wishes, in a way so visceral it feels like tearing a hole into his chest, that his mom could stand next to him and help him.

He’d never regret saying yes to being there for Donghyuck, to being what Donghyuck needed, to being everything Donghyuck has but — but he wishes he had someone, anyone, to do it with.

“Will you come visit, Eomma?” Johnny tries to keep his voice from exposing too much of his emotions, but it sounds so close to begging. “I want you to come hold my baby so badly.”

“Oh, John.” The timber of her voice matches his, shakey and wet. “Of course. I’ll come visit before he turns one, I promise. I’ll send you a special package with some stuff, okay? And in a little bit I’ll come visit.”

“Okay,” Johnny nods. Donghyuck sticks his fist into his mouth. “Okay, that’s good. His birthday is June 6th, okay? You have to come before that.”

*

Introducing Donghyuck to Jaehyun is a little weird for everyone, but it’s mostly weird for Jaehyun.

Donghyuck is — well, he’s a baby, so as long as he’s fed and he’s not sleepy or stinky he’s a pretty chill dude. And Johnny’s heart is too full at the idea of the people in his life getting to meet his awesome little baby to think beyond the bright joy of that.

Jaehyun’s spending the week with his parents on Jeju Island when Johnny picks Donghyuck up, so Johnny takes a picture with his phone and sends it to Jaehyun. It’s of his super cute baby with great motor skills laying on his back and trying to stuff both of his fists into his mouth at once. _This is my baby_ , he sends along with the photo, _his name is Donghyuck but I like to call him Hyuck or Hyuckie. He’s the best baby in the whole world._

Jaehyun Facetimes him not five minutes after the message is delivered. He’s wearing sunglasses, the bridge of his nose is red with a sunburn. “Let me see him,” he insists.

Donghyuck’s laying on the floor, the play mat Johnny picked up on a second trip to Jieun’s the other day spread out underneath him. It’s supposed to be for tummy time (Johnny’s read all about that) but it’s also an okay place for Donghyuck to hang out when Johnny needs both his hands.

Johnny lays down beside Donghyuck, then holds the phone high enough above so Jaehyun can see the both of them.

“Whoa,” Jaehyun says. His face is so close to the screen Johnny can only see his eyes and forehead and his hand looks like it’s cupped around his phone so he can see properly with all the sunlight. “That’s a baby. In our living room. That’s your baby and he’s in our living room, bro.”

Johnny smiles. Donghyuck gets one of his hands in Johnny’s hair and starts to pull. “Yeah. He’s the best baby ever.”

(Johnny thinks he might owe Jaehyun more than he could ever hope to repay. He was the first person Johnny ever told about — well, about everything, after Jieun called him that night. And when Johnny had the skin around his fingernail in his mouth and said _I know you didn’t sign up for a baby when we moved in together but I — I would really like to be in his life, I can find somewhere else to live, if you want, it’ll take a little bit but I can look for something, I won’t be mad if you don’t want to live with, like, a whole fucking baby, dude_ , Jaehyun had simply replied, _I guess we’ll need to figure out how to turn the spare room into a nursery_ and Johnny had wanted to cry and laugh and hug his best friend the hardest he ever has for being the person most consistently in Johnny’s corner.)

“What are you gonna do about work?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny shrugs. Donghyuck has moved on from tugging on his hair to pulling at his nose. “I don’t really do the club gigs anymore anyway, man. I’ll have to pick up more freelance producing stuff, but, y’know, I’ve been kind of wanting to do that anyway.”

Jaehyun nods. Then, he says, “he looks like you.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Yeah.” Jaehyun pushes his sunglasses higher up on his nose, phone a little further away from his face now. “It’s because he’s your baby, dude. That’s why everyone keeps saying it.”

*

No one sits Johnny down to have a serious talk, capital S, capital T, with him and that’s sort of surprising. Everyone is seemingly behaving as if this is how most people acquire children these days; nothing at all and then all at once.

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t scared of it. That someone, anyone, was going to try and convince him to — actually he doesn’t even really want to think about it. About what anyone with their head screwed on straight, who cares a little less about Johnny’s feelings than those he’s already confided in, might sit him down and try to explain to him, try to convince him of.

He knows it doesn’t make any sense, what he’s putting himself through right now. But he doesn’t think it has to make sense.

He’s never grown to care for anything as much or as fast as he cares for Donghyuck. And it’s hard to process, and it’s kind of scary but — it’s at least a little easier to know that the people in Johnny’s life that he cares about care about his baby too. Love him, probably.

It doesn’t have to make sense to be the right thing to do.

*

The first really hard night of this whole, like, being a dad thing, happens much earlier than Johnny had hoped it would.

Johnny is not being biased when he says he’s got the best baby. Donghyuck sleeps ten hours most nights, waking up twice to eat, and only once if Johnny decides to just get them both out of bed early when Donghyuck begins to stir for the second time. He takes two naps a day. He cries when he’s hungry and when he needs his diaper changed and only sometimes when he’s sleepy, and besides he’s the happiest baby on the fucking planet.

But tonight Donghyuck won’t stop crying. Which means he won’t sleep.

Johnny has never been more acutely aware of just how out of his element he is.

Johnny’s tried everything; he’s changed his baby multiple times, outfit after outfit for fear that he wasn’t comfy enough. He’s fed him, twice, and it quiets Donghyuck for about ten minutes until he’s finished the bottle and starts screaming again. Johnny has rocked him endlessly, tried to burp him and done those little leg exercises his mom told him will help with tummy aches. He’s swaddled Donghyuck, over and over, and still, Donghyuck keeps crying.

Maybe he misses his mom. Johnny doesn’t quite know if Donghyuck has the cognitive capacity (and Johnny thinks he has a lot of that, for the record, his baby is very smart) to know, at this age, who his mom was, in that grand definition of the word. But there is some innate part of Donghyuck that knows he had something — that he had someone, who was there and took care of him for months and made him feel safe and loved and smelt a very specific way, and now she’s been gone for almost two weeks.

If Donghyuck is crying because he misses his mom, well. Johnny’s not sure what he’s supposed to do.

Johnny kinda misses his mom, honestly but it’s the middle of the night in Chicago, so he can’t call her. Jaehyun’s still on vacation with his parents and Johnny would hate to interrupt but, also, what the fuck would Jaehyun know about child care? Two months ago he got so drunk he forgot that you couldn’t microwave soup in the tin can and almost started a fire. He’s basically an overgrown baby himself.

Johnny scrolls through his contacts, desperate for someone to lean on.

It’s shameful, he thinks. How he can’t take care of his own baby properly. But he repeats in his head, _it takes a village_ over and over, and presses his ringing phone to his ear.

*

Johnny met Taeyong the first year he was living in Korea. Because he was mutual friends with Jaehyun and Johnny met Jaehyun because they worked the same shitty barista job for pennies.

Taeyong came into Johnny’s life at a time where he was desperate to not feel lonely in a place that was determined to make him feel just that; and Taeyong proved his worth as a friend, and has been around ever since.

(And they’ve kissed, like, maybe twice. But it’s been years since the last time that happened, and they’re good and no one, like, brings it up. But that’s fine. They are friends. Taeyong is Johnny’s friend.)

Taeyong also works with kids. Well, okay, the dance classes he teaches are mostly filled with school age kids, but there’s some toddler classes too. And, okay, Donghyuck is not a toddler. Donghyuck is basically about as fresh as babies come. But Johnny’s also seen babies as young as Donghyuck at the grocery store who went quiet in their strollers when Taeyong so much as waved at them. So, Taeyong must have some mystical power over babies.

And, most importantly: Johnny is desperate.

It’s just after 7PM when Taeyong shows up at Johnny’s door, his gym bag thrown over his shoulder and one of his ugly bucket hats on his head. He looks tired, but Johnny has been dealing with a screaming baby since basically 5AM, so Taeyong can suck it up.

“Sorry,” he says, familiar enough with Johnny and Jaehyun’s apartment to not need to be invited in, simply dropping his bag off at the door and slipping out of his shoes. “One of my students' parents was late picking him up so I had to stick around. What’s the emergency?”

Okay, so, Johnny has not actually explained any of the parameters of this situation to Taeyong yet. Mostly because he got his voicemail when he called and the whole _I have a baby now_ conversation is much better had when there can be a give and take and people can ask questions. Most of the time when Johnny leaves Taeyong ‘emergency’ voicemails it’s because he needs help cooking and Taeyong is his only friend who’s good at it, or he’s sad and doesn’t want to drink alone, or he’s bored and wants to wipe the floor with Taeyong in Smash.

Point is: it’s never a real emergency. This time it kind of is an emergency.

Johnny really means to soften the blow here. To not freak Taeyong out. Everyone he’s told about his baby so far, he’s done it over the phone. That’s a good buffer. It’s not quite as intimidating as looking them in the eye. Or them having to see his baby until Johnny is ready to show them.

But then Donghyuck starts crying again.

Taeyong’s eyes go wide. “Is that a baby? Did you steal a baby? I’m not becoming your accomplice to a kidnapping, Johnny.”

“No, no, I didn’t,” Johnny shakes his head. Donghyuck cries louder, and Johnny has to abandon the conversation for a moment to go get his baby, laying on the floor on his playmat in the living room.

Taeyong follows him, still shell-shocked, and watches from across the room as Johnny hauls his fussy baby off the floor and tries to shush him.

“I didn’t steal a baby,” Johnny frowns. Donghyuck is waving his arms so hard in annoyance, or whatever his problem is right now, that it’s getting kind of hard for Johnny to keep a good grip on him. “This is my baby. His name is Donghyuck.”

Taeyong’s mouth falls open. “You have a baby?”

“Yeah, it’s,” Johnny shakes his head, “it’s a really, really long story. I’ll tell you later. My baby just has not stopped crying all day and I — I just needed some help, I guess. I know that’s kind of weird but, like — I’m having a crisis here, Taeyong.”

Taeyong’s expression shifts from shock to something softer. He gets this dip between his eyebrows he only gets when he’s considering something very hard. Then, he’s holding his arms out.

“Gimme your baby,” he says. “Let me say hi to him.”

The only other person who’s ever held Donghyuck besides Johnny is Jieun. It’s kind of scary to hand him over to someone else. What if Taeyong drops him? Taeyong won’t drop him, obviously, but what if he does? Donghyuck is, like, the most breakable thing Johnny has. And he’s also the most important thing Johnny has, so it’s all a very stressful situation.

But Taeyong is standing there in Johnny’s apartment, barefoot and making grabby hands for Johnny’s baby, and Johnny trusts him. He does. And he can’t be the only person who holds his baby forever. So, very carefully, very gingerly, with something tying a knot in his throat the entire time, Johnny gently hands Donghyuck over to Taeyong.

Donghyuck’s been crying this whole time, sometimes in shouts and other times in little sobs, and he cries for about two more minutes before he realizes someone new is holding him. When he does, he stops, and he stares at Taeyong. That wide-eyed, quizzical baby stare that every new person ends up on the receiving end of. He hiccups, but he’s still not crying. Taeyong smiles at him.

“Hi, baby. Hello, Donghyuck,” he coos as he bounces Donghyuck on his hip. “My name is Taeyong. I’m your daddy’s friend. Why are you so sad today, huh? Is it because of your smelly daddy?”

“Do not badmouth me to my kid,” Johnny interjects.

“Shush. You’re not included in this conversation. Let me and Donghyuck talk.”

*

Yeah, Taeyong has weird mystical baby powers.

He spends about ten minutes talking to Donghyuck, which is more like talking to himself, since Donghyuck is way too enthralled by being around a new person who looks different and smells different and talks different to even make baby noises back. But Donghyuck does not cry.

Eventually, he fusses a bit, but it’s time for his before bed bottle anyway, and as soon as he gets that sweet, sweet milk in his mouth he’s quiet again. Johnny even lets Taeyong give Donghyuck his bottle which — yeah, that’s big. Because what if Donghyuck chokes? He won’t. But he could.

Taeyong even burps Donghyuck after he’s finished without needing to be told.

They end up on Johnny and Jaehyun’s couch around 9PM and with Donghyuck blissfully asleep against Johnny’s chest (Johnny had to take him back after he was fed, even if Donghyuck was perfectly content in Taeyong’s arms, because he missed his baby, god dammit), and he tells Taeyong the long, long story of how this all happened.

“I remember her,” Taeyong says. “Jieun. I remember her being around a couple of times. You guys were never serious, right?”

Johnny shakes his head. “No,” he replies and pets his baby’s soft little head.

“I wonder why she — ” Taeyong starts but then he shakes his head. “No, that’s not my place. Nevermind. Does she want to be in his life?”

“I’m not sure, maybe. Someday.” Johnny shrugs and continues, “I think she’s going through some things right now. It must have been hard for her, being all alone, y’know? Especially when she felt the way she did.” Postpartum is really common, Johnny read the other night. “I told her I’d send her pictures of him. She said she wasn’t ready for that but she’d tell me when she was. Maybe one day she’ll want to visit. I don’t know.”

Taeyong sighs. He’s looking at Johnny’s baby, running a finger over the back of Donghyuck’s little curled up fist. “That makes me sad for him.”

“It’s okay. He’s got a lot of people who love him.” Johnny watches Taeyong watch his baby, something funny biting at his heart, just a little. Not enough to sink its teeth in and not let go. but enough for him to notice the sting of it. “He’s got me, and my mom is coming to visit soon, and when Jaehyun comes home he’ll be around all the time. And you, too, if you want. You can hang out with my baby as much as you want.”

“Okay,” Taeyong smiles. “I like hanging out with your baby. He’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah. He’s the best baby on the planet.”

*

Taeyong spends the night. Because he’s tired and Jaehyun’s bed is empty and he did Johnny a favour, so the least Johnny can do is repay him with breakfast.

Donghyuck, probably exhausted from his long day of crying and no naps, miraculously sleeps through the night, and only wakes up Johnny for a feeding at 6AM.

Johnny is mildly petrified Donghyuck will start up the crying fit again as soon as he’s finished with his bottle but he doesn’t. He gurgles and plays with Johnny’s fingers, shoving them into his mouth to suck on them, but only after Johnny has dutifully recalled the last time he washed his hands, and deemed them clean enough without them actually still probably tasting like soap.

He assumes if Donghyuck doesn’t like the taste he’ll spit them out. He’s good at that: spitting stuff out. Johnny’s baby is very smart.

Taeyong wakes just before 8AM, when Donghyuck is on his playmat for tummy time. Johnny is laying beside him, snapping pictures to send to his mom. It’s only when Taeyong pads into the living room in too-big sleep clothes he borrowed from Johnny, rubbing a hand through his bed hair, that Johnny remembers he meant to make Taeyong breakfast.

“Shit,” he says, bouncing up. Donghyuck giggles at the sudden movement. Kid thinks Johnny is the most hilarious person ever. He’s right. “Go back to bed. I meant to make you breakfast as a thank you. I forgot. Shit.”

Taeyong yawns, unphased, and sits on the ground next to Donghyuck. Donghyuck reaches out for him immediately. Taeyong looks up at Johnny hopefully, and when Johnny shakes his head and explains Hyuck needs twenty more minutes of tummy time, Taeyong pouts.

“Dude, your baby is already the strongest baby I’ve ever seen. He’s like a little Hulk baby.” To illustrate, Taeyong moves Donghyuck’s little baby arms in imitation of him flexing. He’s got the chubbiest wrists ever. “See? If you give him more tummy time he’ll beat all the other babies up.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Johnny relents. “Then you can pick him up.”

Taeyong looks triumphant and then he turns to Donghyuck and makes faces at him until he laughs.

*

Johnny ends up ordering breakfast instead of making it. He is, truthfully, not a very good cook, and asking Taeyong to cook his own thank you breakfast is where he’s gotta draw the line.

Taeyong is, like, obsessed with Johnny’s baby. Johnny doesn’t blame him. His baby is so cute and funny and happy. Donghyuck lies with his back against Taeyong’s chest, balanced between his crossed legs and content to play with his own toes, while Johnny and Taeyong eat on the floor. He looks a little wobbly, Johnny thinks, but Taeyong’s right. Donghyuck is really strong, and really smart, and the best baby ever. And Taeyong’s got him.

“Give me back my baby,” Johnny says once they’ve finished.

“When was the last time you showered?” Taeyong asks, instead of handing Johnny’s baby over.

Johnny frowns. “Doesn’t matter. Want baby. He’s mine.”

“Yeah but you smell, bro,” Taeyong replies. “I wasn’t kidding when I asked him if he was crying because you were stinky yesterday. Seriously, when was the last time you bathed?”

Johnny tries to remember. He washes his hands a lot, because he’d never want to get his baby sick, but. Well. The last time he showered was probably the morning before he got Donghyuck. Johnny’s had him for almost three weeks at this point.

Suddenly aware of how long it’s been, and how seemingly he’s been so trapped in his own world of _DaddyAndHyuckie_ that he hasn’t really registered much else, Johnny looks around his apartment.

It looks like a tornado might have come through at some point. That’s how bad it is.

Donghyuck’s stuff is everywhere, and there’s a pile of laundry that is mostly stuff that Donghyuck has spit up on (his own clothes and Johnny’s too), and there’s only one dirty baby bottle in the actual sink, but there’s a pile of other dishes on the counter near it. Johnny doesn’t want to think about his room. He keeps things _clean_ , for god’s sake, because he’s got a baby. But that doesn’t mean things aren’t _messy_.

“Damn,” Johnny breathes, taking in everything. “I’m kind of a hot mess right now, huh?”

Taeyong shrugs. “You’ve got an excuse. You’re a new dad.” Taeyong grips Hyuck’s chunky little elbows in the air and waves them around. “Go shower. I’ll watch him.”

“What about work?”

“I’m off today.” Taeyong has an answer for everything. “Go shower. I do not want to think about the filth you’ve accumulated since acquiring a baby.”

*

Johnny takes the quickest shower of his life and he’s weary the entire time.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Taeyong. It’s just that — well, he’s never left Donghyuck alone. Sure, he’s left the room on occasion to grab something while Donghyuck was playing on the floor or sleeping, but it was only ever for a second. And his and Jaehyun’s apartment is small, there’s no way Johnny wouldn’t hear if his baby needed him. Hell, it took Johnny a week to even want to not be holding Donghyuck, and Donghyuck still sleeps in his bed with him.

When he’s in the shower, Johnny has to close the door. The shower is loud and despite knowing there’s no way, Johnny strains to hear what’s going on outside through the steady flow of water and the walls of his bathroom anyway. The worst part is the warm water relaxes his wound-tight muscles and makes him bone-deep tired.

He can’t be tired. He’s a dad. He has a baby. His baby cannot feed and dress himself. He can't even wipe his own butt. Johnny needs to be awake to do all those things for him.

Worse still: Taeyong notices he’s tired as soon as Johnny emerges back into the living room, clean and dressed.

“Take a nap,” he insists. “I’m here. Take a nap.”

Johnny really, really wants to argue. He wants to try and explain to Taeyong his unfounded fear that if he closes his eyes, doesn’t pay attention to his baby for one second, the worst will happen. Or, he’ll, like, disappear into thin air and Johnny will be left with all this baby stuff but no baby and a hole in his heart so big it will never be repaired. But that’s sad, and stupid and Johnny is so tired. He sprawls out on the couch (a compromise: he’s napping, sure, but he’s still not too far from his baby), limbs a mess, and sleep is tugging his eyelids closed before he can even fight it.

The last thing Johnny sees, before he falls into the inky black of unconsciousness, is Taeyong laying Donghyuck on his playmat and pretending like he’s going to eat Donghyuck’s feet up to the ankle.

Donghyuck squeals at his impending doom. Johnny’s heart does, like, a little backflip in his chest. He’d dwell on that more if he wasn’t so tired. If he remembers the feeling when he wakes up, maybe he’ll examine it more.

Maybe.

*

Jaehyun comes home from vacation and the first thing he says, on his way through the door, is, “this is the cleanest the apartment has ever been after I’ve left you alone for an extended period of time.”

Johnny shrugs, he’s sitting on the couch, feeding his baby a bottle. It would be pretty impressive that he did all that, what with his newly acquired spawn and all, but he didn’t. Taeyong did.

Jaehyun looks at him, still a little off-put and aloof, but he’s had a lot of time to process this new situation at least. That’ll make it easier. Johnny has had no time to process and he’s doing fine, he thinks.

“Is he almost done?” Jaehyun asks, inclining his head towards Donghyuck. Donghyuck looks up at him, wide-eyed but still dutifully sucking on his bottle, enthralled again by a new person in his midst.

“Almost. But he’s got to burp after this and he’s kind of bad at that.” It’s okay. Johnny’s baby is perfect. He’s good at everything, so it’s only fair to all the other babies that he has some kind of flaw. “Why?”

“Kinda wanna hold him, if that’s okay?” Jaehyun shrugs with one shoulder, like he’s not quite sure if he believes himself. “I got him a present, too.”

Johnny’s gonna melt into a puddle of goo. His best friend bought his baby _a present_?

“Do you hear that, Hyuckie?” Johnny runs his hands through the straggly little hairs that fan across Donghyuck’s forehead. “Your Uncle Jaehyun brought you something. Isn’t that so awesome?”

Donghyuck continues to suck on his bottle rather than respond. He’s such a good eater. Johnny’s gonna have the beefiest baby ever.

*

The present is a soft, plush little duck toy. Donghyuck thanks Jaehyun for his generosity by immediately shoving the beak into his mouth.

“He had a duck blanket,” Jaehyun explains, “in all the pictures you sent. So, uh, I bought him a duck.”

Jaehyun had felt kind of weird holding Johnny’s baby properly, in his arms and all that. Which is fine. They’ve maneuvered everything so Hyuck is just sitting on Jaehyun’s lap on the couch right now, leaned back against his stomach and gumming his poor new duckie, and Jaehyun looks much more comfortable like that.

Johnny knows Jaehyun likes kids — but he usually responds better to one’s that are a little older. One’s that are a little bit more fun to play with, not quite as breakable. And, to be fair, Johnny thinks the proximity of Donghyuck to his life in general kind of freaks him out. In a similar way to how it freaks Johnny out, probably, just a little less so; there’s so much shit to just screw up.

“How has it been?”

Johnny’s lying on the floor, because he’s exhausted, and there’s not enough room for him to lay down on the couch. “It’s been,” he sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It’s been good. But it’s a lot. Like, getting used to all of it. I think I’m doing okay but I _also_ feel like I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown that I can’t have because — well, y’know,” he gestures half-heartedly towards Donghyuck.

“Yeah,” Jaehyun nods. Donghyuck is holding his duck in one hand now, gesturing wildly, and the other hand clutches one of Jaehyun’s fingers in his tiny fist.

They are quiet for a few moments after that. Both of them watch Donghyuck as he entertains himself, as he makes those little baby noises of happy, fast breaths and shrieks. God, Johnny loves him so much. He had no idea he could love something this much.

Then, Jaehyun speaks. He says, “you’ve got people around, y’know. Like, we’ll help you out. You don’t have to do everything by yourself.”

“Yeah,” Johnny responds lamely. He’s still not quite sure how to ask for things yet. Still not quite sure how to reach out and not feel like a failure to his son. It’s like he keeps forgetting most people take this on as a unit of two. But he made this choice, didn’t he? For it to be just him and Donghyuck and the world revolving around them and, well, if he made that choice — if he made that bed, he’s obligated to sleep in it, isn’t he?

He doesn’t know how to explain to Jaehyun the all-consuming fear that if he ever lets anyone besides himself take care of his baby, he will somehow turn into some kind of deadbeat dad. Or people will think he’s like that, someone who can’t be bothered to properly care for a child he doesn’t really want. Especially when he wants Hyuck so bad, has never wanted anything more. Or, god forbid, that something awful will happen to his baby, of which the list of possibilities is never ending. Johnny has to be doing everything, or he always has to be watching other people do it, and if he doesn’t. If he _doesn’t_ — god, it’s exhausting. Johnny is exhausted and he needs to learn how to ask for help.

But Johnny can’t tell Jaehyun all of that, so instead, he says, “Taeyong actually came over and gave me a hand for a bit.”

“Ah,” Jaehyun nods. “That’s why the apartment is so clean, isn’t it?”

Johnny holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Caught. I tried to stop him but he executed a covert mission when I went to put Donghyuck down for a nap and then, like, maybe fell asleep next to him.”

Jaehyun does not answer but he seems to consider what Johnny is saying to him very carefully. There’s a little quirk to his eyebrow, too, and he looks like he wants very, very badly to say something but he’s keeping it to himself. For now, at least.

Donghyuck has gone quiet, for the last little bit, and it’s now that Johnny notices he’s fast asleep in Jaehyun’s lap, face squished against his arm, little baby cheeks all chunky and soft and cute. Johnny takes his phone for a picture, because his baby is the cutest and Jaehyun’s pretty handsome too, and when Jaehyun realizes his intentions he squirms a little uncomfortably.

“Stop moving,” Johnny chastises him. “My baby is sleeping. If you wake him up he will cry and be very sad and I will be very angry with you.”

Jaehyun sighs but stills. Johnny’s expression is pure mischief as he snaps about a dozen photos.


	2. & you're standing here beside me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back to my incredibly indulgent fic! enjoy your stay! thank you for all the wonderful comments there were left and all the bookmarks and all the kudos. glad to know y'all are strapped in for this with me.
> 
> thank you alex for beta-ing ♡

They fall, as most other things do, into routine.

Routines are good.

Babies like routines.

*

Donghyuck is just over five months old when Johnny starts to feel really, genuinely overwhelmed.

And, listen, he’s been perpetually overwhelmed since he became his son’s sole caregiver but this is — it’s much worse. Like, amplified to the umpteenth degree and consistently getting worse. Between trying to do freelance work to be able to afford formula and diapers and _everything else_ , Johnny is spread so thin he thinks he might splinter. Every time Donghyuck cries Johnny feels like crying too. And sometimes he does, for real, and then he’s just uselessly holding his baby and crying until he can get it together enough to address whatever problem needs addressing. That’s the thing about having a baby: there is always a problem and Johnny is always the one responsible for fixing it. And that’s okay, Johnny loves his baby and he’d do anything for him, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t overwhelming, and exhausting, and an endless cycle of repeating issues that would wear anyone down to the bone.

It’s four in the morning and Donghyuck has just finished eating and, for the life of him, will not fall back asleep. And all Johnny wants is like, maybe two more hours of blessed, soundless, oblivion, but his baby will not fall asleep. All he does is blink his little eyes up at Johnny and make gurgling noises with his mouth, looking more awake and aware than he possibly ever has before.

(Jaehyun is — somewhere. Johnny’s not sure. Maybe Jaehyun told him and he forgot. He goes out a lot these days, Jaehyun, and Johnny doesn’t blame him. His baby wakes up twice a night, usually, and that can’t be good for anyone who’s trying to maintain an adult man’s sleeping schedule.)

This is how Johnny ends up in the same situation as a month ago: desperate and overwhelmed, a candle burning at both ends, and ringing Taeyong’s number.

Taeyong doesn’t pick up — of course he doesn’t, it’s four in the morning. But then —

But then there’s a knock at Johnny’s door just past 6AM, and standing on the other side of it, dressed casually and clutching two Iced Americanos, is Lee Taeyong.

Johnny immediately starts speaking a mile a minute. “Oh my god,” he says, “sorry, I know it’s stupid early but I’m just — I’m so tired and he won’t fall asleep and I have a million things to do today and — you probably work today, don’t you? Shit, I’m really sorry. I just need to close my eyes for, like, forty-five minutes and then I’ll be good and then you can get out of here. I’m sorry for asking, really, but I just —”

“Johnny,” Taeyong interrupts him. Johnny realizes he’s breathing kind of hard. “It’s okay. I don’t work today. Give me your baby and go to bed.”

“Okay,” Johnny worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “Okay, but he’ll need feeding soon. You can wake me up then, if you need help. Or whenever you need help. Or if he starts fussing, or needs changing, or whatever. Just wake me up whenever, okay?”

“Johnny,” Taeyong repeats, filled with an ever-present sense of calm in comparison to Johnny. An oasis in a desert, a port in a storm. “I can feed and change Donghyuck, it’s okay. Just go to bed. No offence, but you look like total shit. I’ll put this coffee in the fridge for later.”

*

Johnny sleeps like he’s dead; he spreads out like a starfish, takes advantage of all the room in the bed that he usually shares with his baby.

When he wakes, it’s too soft light filtering through his window, turning the whole room a warm-toned orange, and low music coming from the living room.

He finds Taeyong on the floor, sitting next to Donghyuck, who is laid out on his playmat on his stomach.

Tummy time. Taeyong remembered to give his baby goddamn _tummy time_. Johnny’s heart does that little back flip again, only this time worse, because it feels like it kicks him in the ribs along the way.

The music is coming from Taeyong’s phone, a light acoustic song that Johnny doesn’t recognize. He’s humming along with it, poking Hyuck’s round little tummy on beat, and every time he does Hyuck flails his arms in excitement, doing one of those breathless tiny baby laughs.

Johnny’s heart is doing the trapeze at this point.

He collapses onto the floor and gathers his baby against him, peppering kisses all over his chubby cheeks. He’s warm and smells like milk and baby shampoo and detergent and he’s the cutest, best baby in the whole world.

“He just ate,” Taeyong says. He’s got a little bit of spit-up on the shoulder of his t-shirt, which would be kind of gross if it wasn’t so fucking endearing. “For the second time, actually. Your baby is a bottomless pit.”

“Yeah,” Johnny’s voice is dreamy. “Isn’t he the best?”

Taeyong laughs. “Yeah. I like him a lot.”

*

Taeyong doesn’t leave after Johnny wakes up. Johnny offers, says he’ll be fine, and Taeyong shakes his head no, and Johnny is secretly very, very pleased that Taeyong decides to stay.

Instead of leaving, Taeyong watches Donghyuck while Johnny catches up on some work. He gets down next to Donghyuck on the floor and puts on a three-act puppet show with the duck Jaehyun got him, and a rabbit that Donghyck got when he was still with Jieun. He bounces Donghyuck on his hip across the apartment. He blows raspberries on Hyuck’s soft tummy, pretends to chew on Hyuck’s chubby wrists, boops Hyuck’s nose, over and over and over. And when Hyuck tires himself out and falls asleep, Taeyong arranges his duck blanket, his duck plushie and his rabbit around him, like he’s Snow White and those are all his best friends.

Johnny makes them sandwiches — the only thing food he has a ninety-nine percent success rate on, besides his baby’s bottles — and they sink into the couch to eat them.

“I have to go shopping today,” Johnny thinks out loud. Another thing on his long, long list of tasks to complete. “Which is always a nightmare. And then I think I might try to set up the nursery. At least the crib. So Hyuck can stop sleeping with me.”

The last part kind of makes Johnny’s chest squeeze uncomfortably. It’s not that he wants Donghyuck to stop sleeping with him — it’s that he’s getting bigger, and soon he’ll start sleeping through the night, and he’ll need to be weaned off of swaddling, and Johnny just needs to get better at letting his baby be, sometimes, when there’s no reason for Johnny to be attending to his every move.

“I can help, if you want?” Taeyong offers, “with the shopping and the nursery.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Johnny doesn’t think he’s ever seen Taeyong look more sincere. The dip between his eyebrows is there, but it is less considering and more determined, and the look in his eyes is unwavering.

“Okay,” Johnny relents. “Okay. Donghyuck will be up within the hour, probably, and then we’ll go.”

*

The most dangerous thing about this grocery shopping with Taeyong thing, is that it makes it very, very easy for Johnny to pretend they’re some kind of family.

Like, they put Donghyuck in the baby seat, and Taeyong pushes the cart through the aisles and makes funny faces at Johnny’s baby until he laughs, while Johnny picks stuff off the shelves. And sometimes Taeyong will even offer commentary on Johnny’s purchases; he hums and says that Johnny should buy organic tomatoes, maybe, and scoffs under his breath at his choice of instant ramyeon. And it really is like they are a single unit; Johnny and Taeyong and a baby. One, two, three, just like that.

But they’re not a family. They’re not, and every time Johnny reminds himself of it, he feels guilt gnaw at his gut. Guilt that he’s making Taeyong help him with all this stuff, when it’s not Taeyong’s responsibility.

“You’re thinking so hard I can see smoke coming out of your ears,” Taeyong says when they’re in line at the check-out. They took Hyuck out of his seat because he was fussing, so now Taeyong holds him in his arms, while Donghyuck squirms and moves his head around tirelessly, trying to take in all of the sights and sounds of the grocery store.

Johnny purses his mouth. “You don’t have to come help with the nursery,” he replies, desperate to relieve some of the conflicting feelings of guilt in his stomach and the jumping jacks in his heart. “I mean, like, I can drop you off at home.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why I have to keep telling you that I want to help you, Johnny.”

“I just feel like, I don’t know. I feel like I’m taking advantage.”

“I’m _offering_ ,” Taeyong insists, and there’s a hard edge to his voice. Donghyuck’s eyes go wide, in Taeyong’s arms, probably sensing something is off (because Johnny’s baby is very smart and very good at reading social cues, even if he’s only five months old), and he starts to wiggle, even more than before, and whine. “Now you’re upsetting your baby, Suh.”

Johnny reaches out for Donghyuck and Taeyong obliges. Once he’s settled in his dad’s arms, Hyuck drops his head against Johnny’s shoulder and he sighs, like he’s a teenager or something, but he’s also heart-meltingly adorable.

“Listen,” Taeyong starts again. They shuffle forward in line. “I want to help and I like hanging out with your baby. Stop acting like you’re trapping me. I’m an adult and I can do what I want. And what I want to do is play with your baby and help you set up his nursery. And a bunch of other things, whatever you need help with. Okay?”

Johnny nods, slowly and carefully, not quite sure at all.

“Say okay, Suh.”

“Okay.”

*

In a moment of divine intervention, Donghyuck falls asleep in the car on the way home, and he remains asleep as Johnny fumbles him out of the car and all the way up to the apartment.

On any other day, Johnny would probably drag Hyuck’s play mat into the nursery and have him sleep on that, always in Johnny’s peripheral vision and easy to get to if he starts crying. Johnny thinks his baby crying is the worst sound he’s ever heard.

Today, Johnny tempers that urge. He lays Donghyuck in the centre of his bed, instead, circled by pillows. Just in case. Not that his baby can even roll over on his own yet. But just in case.

Taeyong watches Johnny from the doorway. When Johnny turns to face him, he’s got this funny expression.

“What?” Johnny asks.

“Nothing,” Taeyong shakes his head, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “It’s just crazy that you’re a dad.”

“You’re telling me.”

*

“The idea that I’m supposed to be able to assemble this by myself while taking care of my baby is insanity.”

Johnny squints at the crib instructions again. Ten minutes of staring at them and they still don’t make any sense.

“I think most people assemble their cribs before the baby is around.”

“Well, some of us don't have that kind of luxury, Taeyong.”

Johnny is, like, genuinely annoyed but Taeyong takes it in stride and just laughs at him. Then, he gently pulls the instructions out of Johnny’s hands, looking them over himself.

Taeyong has somehow got four pieces put together in a matter of five minutes, and then he’s saying to Johnny, “how have you been?”

Johnny sits, useless, on his baby’s bedroom floor, handing Taeyong screws and tools when he asks for them. The question makes him sigh. For a moment he considers lying, or if he should just allow himself to give Taeyong something closer to honesty instead.

He decides on the latter.

“Um, like, really overwhelmed, actually.” Taeyong does not respond, doesn’t even look up from where he’s tightening a screw. But he nods, silently urging Johnny on. “I think I’m running myself ragged. I know that I could be — I don’t know, a little less hands on. A little less obsessed with being around him all the time and never wanting him to cry and all that stuff. I think if I mellowed out I would feel better but I don’t — I don’t know how. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong replies, holding his hand out for the screwdriver. Johnny hands it to him, and his fingertips brush against Taeyong’s palm. “I mean, I’ll never really understand, because I’m not a dad, but what you’re saying makes sense to me.”

“It’s like,” Johnny has broken the ice and now the water is rising through it, spilling truth all over everything. “It’s like I’m afraid if I spend one second not looking at him, he’ll, like, disappear or something. The universe will decide I’m not good enough for him and whisk him away or whatever. I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

Taeyong has stopped his work on the crib. Instead, his gaze is fixed on Johnny, a little sad but very understanding.

“It’s not stupid,” he tells Johnny softly. “I’m sure a lot of parents feel like that.”

“Yeah. I guess. Sometimes I wish I had someone else around.”

“Like Jieun?”

“Like anyone,” and there it is again, the falsehood brought to life in Johnny’s head; a beautifully painted portrait where he has a little family and Taeyong is there and he’s part of the family too. He wishes it was as simple as imagining Jieun as some kind of mother to his son, but when Johnny daydreams that’s never what he sees. Whether he dreams during distracted wakefulness or at night it is the same: him, and Taeyong, and they do things like take Hyuck to the beach, and bake him a cake for his first birthday, and watch him take his first steps, and, and, _and_ —

And then Donghyuck is whining from the other room, awake and calling for Johnny’s full attention, and the moment is broken.

*

It’s late. After midnight, Johnny thinks, but he hasn’t even looked at the time on his phone in what feels like hours. Taeyong is still in Johnny’s apartment, sitting next to him on the couch.

He and Johnny tag-teamed on dinner, which really means Taeyong made most of it and Johnny cut vegetables, until Donghyuck needed his diaper changed and Johnny bowed out completely. The food was good. Taeyong ate on the couch and Johnny ate on the floor and Donghyuck kept his duck’s beak in his mouth like always, as if it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

Donghyuck’s asleep now. He’s in his room, in his brand new crib. Johnny swaddled him with one arm sticking out and set up the baby monitor close by, covered him in his blanket with all the ducks on it, kissed his forehead and both his eyelids.

Now he’s trying really, really hard to keep his mind off his baby, alone in his nursery. He’s trying really, really hard not to stare at the baby monitor, holding his breath and waiting for Donghyuck to make a single noise. He holds it close, still, clutched in both hands and afraid to put it down.

But, inevitably, it doesn’t help much. Aside from the occasional stir and heavy breath, Donghyuck is quiet. He’s such a good baby. The best baby ever. He was asleep when Johnny put him to bed and now he’s none the wiser — he doesn’t know he’s alone in his crib, in his own room. He doesn’t feel forgotten. He’ll cry in the morning, but it’ll be because he’s hungry, not anything else, and Johnny just needs to remember that. He doesn’t need to trick himself into any worse of a complex.

The TV buzzes quietly across from the couch, playing something Taeyong picked but neither of them are really watching. It would be so easy to do this every night; sit next to someone (to _Taeyong_ ) on the couch and let everything be quiet around them, especially when Johnny’s days have seemingly never been louder. It would be so easy to have someone to talk to, to decompress with, to tell all the things that spread worry throughout Johnny’s entire being and make him feel like his veins are running hot with anxiety that feels like battery acid. To try and make himself understand the things that scare him the most about being a dad, and understand himself better by consequence too.

It would be easy to ask Taeyong to stay.

So he does.

“Hey,” Johnny nudges Taeyong with his elbow. He looks so sleepy, like his eyelids are heavy with slumber and the rest of his body is slack with exhaustion. Hanging out with a baby will do that to a person. “If — if you don’t want to take public transit home, you can just say, y’know? If you want. I’ll drive you home in the morning.”

Johnny looks down at where Taeyong’s hands sit in his own lap. The blue hued light of the TV has turned his veins radioactive bright under his skin. The show that’s on is playing music — something twinkly, something light.

“I mean, Jaehyun’s going to be home later, so you can’t take his bed this time,” Johnny continues. Something is caught — not in his throat, but the spot just below it. Like it was on his way up from his chest and got stuck before it made it too far. “And the couch is uncomfortable as shit but — but my bed’s not bad. And it’s big enough. Especially because my baby isn’t sleeping in it anymore. So, if you want.”

Johnny hopes Taeyong understands the implication here: _I am worried if I sleep alone in the bed I’ve shared with my baby for the last month and half, with him in a different room, I won’t sleep at all. And, like, I have a baby. So I need all the sleep I can get._

And it’s not just that — it’s _not_ just that Johnny is afraid that he might worry himself sick. There are other reasons that begin and end, distinctly, with Taeyong specifically. But Johnny is actively attempting to keep himself from portraying those outwardly.

“Okay,” Taeyong says, because of course he does. Because every time Johnny pushes, Taeyong pulls, because —

“You’re waking up with the baby, though,”

And it’s so easy for Johnny to _pretend_ —

“Hey. We’re supposed to take turns.”

Pretend and keep pretending, over and over —

“Okay. Deal.”

That they’re something they’re not.

*

And, once again, it seems: if there is a routine to fall into, Johnny will fall into it.

Taeyong starts spending a lot of time with Johnny and Donghyuck. Like, a lot more time. Like, sometimes he leaves to go to work in the morning from Johnny’s apartment and comes back to Johnny’s at night. He’s helping Johnny stay on top of his work, is what he tells him, because babies cost money. But it’s more than that too. Johnny knows it’s more than that. He wouldn’t have that somersault-y feeling in his chest whenever he thinks about it too much if it wasn't more than that.

It’s more than that because Taeyong will play peek-a-boo with Hyuck for hours, and let him pull on his hair and ears and nose. He’ll let Hyuck bite his fingers and he’ll kiss Hyuck’s forehead and his tummy and his legs that look like cinnamon rolls and don’t taste quite as sweet, but are sweet in their own way. It’s more than that because they make a lot of meals together, enough times that Johnny thinks he might be getting better at cooking just through osmosis, and they buy Donghyuck one of those moveable jumpers so he can be in the kitchen with them, bobbing up and down on his chubby baby legs and trying to fit all the toys on it into his mouth. It’s more than that because Taeyong is there when Hyuck rolls onto his back for the first time. Embarrassingly enough, because it almost makes Johnny cry, he has to hide it by pulling the collar of his sweater up over his head. It’s more than that because Taeyong is there the first time Johnny gives Hyuck solids, too — just a little bit of rice cereal and mostly formula, the doctor said they should try it out before he starts eating them regularly next month — and laughs when Donghyuck immediately decides he hates it, makes a face and spits it all up over Johnny’s hand and shirt sleeve. It’s more than that because Johnny’s mom sends a huge care package, filled with cute little baby clothes and blankets and plushies for Donghyuck. For Johnny, she sends a handful of parenting books. Stuff like _What To Expect When You’re Expecting_ , _Happiest Toddler on the Block_. There are even some in Korean, which Johnny is still not great at reading. It’s more than that because Taeyong agrees to diligently read them and give Johnny the gist.

They go grocery shopping together. Taeyong doesn’t spend the night every night. But it’s nice when he does, and when it happens he always shares Johnny’s bed, and it’s nice. It’s always nice. Even when Donghyuck wakes them both up at 4AM.

Johnny lets Taeyong feed his baby and change his baby and bathe his baby and _everything_. And he wouldn’t do that if Taeyong wasn’t special, and important, and if it wasn’t _more than that_.

It is Jaehyun who says something first. He’s watching Johnny sort through clothes that Donghyuck doesn’t fit into anymore (if Johnny thinks about it too much he will have a crisis, his little baby is growing too fast) and bouncing Donghyuck on his knee, who babbles without repose like he’s saying the most important things anyone’s ever heard.

He probably is. Johnny’s baby is very smart and well-spoken.

“Taeyong’s been around a lot lately,” is what he says. It does not give Johnny pause, not yet.

“Yeah. He’s been a really big help,” Johnny replies. He does not expect this conversation to move beyond that; Jaehyun has presented a thought to Johnny, a pseudo-question, and Johnny has responded to it. That’s all it needs.

But Jaehyun continues, “and he stays in your room with you? When he does?”

Something goes ice cold in Johnny’s veins. He suddenly, desperately, wants to be holding his baby. “Yeah,” he speaks slowly to Jaehyun. “He slept in your room the first time but — and the couch is not comfortable. You know that.”

Jaehyun nods, lips downturned into the slightest of frowns. Still straddling one Jaehyun’s legs with both of his tiny ones, Jaehyun’s hands under his armpits to keep him steady, Donghyuck has gone much more quiet. He’s not babbling anymore, at least, and he’s trying to get his foot into his mouth.

Maybe Johnny’s baby is trying to tell him something.

“I just,” Jaehyun shakes his head, and he looks down at Donghyuck in his lap. “I just don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

“People look at me strangely everywhere I go with Hyuck, Jaehyun. I’m a single dad. I don’t care if they think —”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jaehyun interrupts. “Who cares what strangers think? They don’t matter. I meant,” Jaehyun’s frown deepens. Then, he says, “I meant you and Taeyong.”

“What?” Johnny croaks, throat all tight and voice wavering. “What do you mean?”

“I mean — I mean that Donghyuck is your baby, Johnny, and that doesn’t mean,” he sighs, “that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help but you have to understand — you have to understand what leaning on the same person, over and over, for everything — you have to understand what that looks like. What that might _imply_ — for the both of you.”

And it’s like Jaehyun knows; it’s like he knows all these half-formed fantasies Johnny’s been letting himself tug on the threads of and follow, like he knows all he can think about when Taeyong holds his baby is how they could be a family, and how good that would be, and how it would be different and maybe other people wouldn’t get it but it wouldn’t matter.

But none of it matters, does it? Because it’s not real. Taeyong is nobody to Johnny. And he is, ultimately, no one to Donghyuck either. It hurts Johnny’s heart, in a way that’s so harsh and real someone may as well have punched him in the solar plexus, and he doesn’t think he could ever say that out loud. To anyone. Least of all Taeyong.

“It doesn’t imply anything,” is Johnny’s retort, more defensive than he meant it. “Taeyong wants to help, and his work hours are better for helping than anyone else's, and Donghyuck likes him. I trust him with my baby and that’s important. So — so it just makes sense, okay? It doesn’t imply anything. No one is getting the wrong idea.”

“Okay, Johnny. Okay. I just don't want anyone to get hurt. This is big, this whole thing, because your kid is involved —”

“Jaehyun,” Johnny interrupts, and now he’s somehow gone from the accused to the accuser. “No offence, but he’s my kid, and I don’t particularly think it’s your place to lecture me about what I can and can’t do because of him.”

Jaehyun’s mouth — previously slack-jawed and open — closes with a click of teeth. Donghyuck cranes his neck to look up at him, and then he looks at Johnny. His eyes are big and glassy and his bottom lip juts out, and Johnny knows he’s about to start crying.

“Give me my baby,” Johnny extends his arms. Donghyuck reaches for him in return.

“Johnny,” Jaehyun tries again. By this point Donghyuck is squirming in his lap, fussing. “I was just looking out for —”

“Jaehyun, if you don’t give me my baby, he’s going to start screaming. Nobody wants that. Please just let me have him.”

Jaehyun finally obliges, letting Johnny lift his baby into his arms. It brings the both of them calm immediately; Donghyuck quiets, puts his head on Johnny’s shoulder and stuff his fist into his mouth, and Johnny smells his baby’s hair and rubs his back and lets himself feel thankful for the way no one has ever loved him quite as hard and as easily as his son has.

*

Johnny does not want what Jaehyun says to get to him. Because it’s not fair to him, or to his baby, or to Taeyong. But it seems what Johnny wants and what actually happens are parallel lines in Johnny’s life, destined to never meet.

What Jaehyun says burrows deep into Johnny’s consciousness, feeds on all his good thoughts like a parasite until all he’s left with is guilt and worry and way too much negativity.

The day after the confrontation, Taeyong texts Johnny a _what do you want from Starbucks_ and Johnny considers it for five minutes, before he lies and tells Taeyong that Hyuck seems a little off today, so Johnny’s gonna push his work until later and just hang out with his baby.

Which, in his defense, is what he ends up doing. Laying on the couch with his baby on his chest, the both of them lethargic and quiet. Donghyuck barely cries; only once, when he’s so tired it annoys him but he refuses to fall asleep until Johnny paces around his apartment in circles with him.

(It’s not that Johnny thinks Donghyuck _knows_ things — but he could. Johnny will not doubt his baby's intelligence, or his intuition. He can be anything he wants to be because he’s the smartest, most perceptive, most special baby in the whole world and Johnny will make sure he knows it. Johnny knows at least two people who will back him up on this too.)

The next day, Taeyong calls and Johnny doesn’t pick up. He calls again, and still, Johnny let’s it ring until it goes to voicemail. And then it’s hours after that when Johnny finally texts him, _hey, sorry, busy day. I think Hyuckie is sick_ , which is another lie.

It continues like this for days; Taeyong pushes, and Johnny pulls away. He makes up excuse after excuse, or sometimes he just ignores it. Taeyong stops calling as much, eventually, which makes it easier, but it makes Johnny’s mood even more sour. He gets behind on his current freelance project. He’s starting to run dangerously low on diapers and formula.

It’s a mess, all of it, and it’s all Johnny’s fault.

It’s 2AM and Hyuck has been crying for two hours. Full-on meltdown crying. He’s fed and he’s changed and he’s spit up all over Johnny’s fucking shirt and he’s still crying. Johnny rocks him, shifting from foot to foot, in the middle of Donghyuck’s nursery, the door closed in what feels like a futile attempt to not disturb Jaehyun.

Donghyuck babbles more than ever before these days and Johnny knows talking to him is good for his development — Taeyong read that in one the books Johnny’s mom sent him and then told him about it — and it’s a good distraction sometimes. So Johnny speaks to Donghyuck in hushed tones, holding their faces so close together their noses brush.

“Hey, baby. Can you stop crying for me? Please. Your daddy is so tired and I know you are too. You’re so tired you don’t know how to stop crying and sleep.”

Hyuck keeps crying. Johnny keeps talking.

“I know. I’m being mean to you, aren’t I? I bet you miss Taeyong. I miss him too. He was your best friend, huh? And now you never see him. I’m sorry, baby. I know I’m not being fair.”

Johnny shifts so he’s no longer cradling Donghyuck in his arms, but rather leaning him against his chest and shoulder, petting a long line from the base of Donghyuck’s skull to his lower back.

“I’m kind of a shitty dad, aren’t I? I don’t even know how to take care of you myself. You always get like this eventually and I never know what to do. What am I supposed to do when — when we all get old and everyone else leaves and it’s you and me, huh? You’re gonna hate me. I’m sorry, Hyuckie. I wish I was better at this.”

Johnny is so lost in his own head, mindlessly rocking his baby, that he hardly notices when Hyuck quiets and goes dead-weight against Johnny, asleep with his face buried in the crook of Johnny’s neck.

“I love you so much, Hyuckie,” he sighs, speaking to just himself even more now. “I’m sorry I’m not good at this sometimes.”

Donghyuck snuffles, little fist coming up to rub at his face in his sleep.

Johnny takes Donghyuck into Johnny’s own bedroom with him that night. He thinks he can allow himself the indulgence of that, at least sometimes.

*

It is another two days before Taeyong shows up at Johnny’s door unannounced, looking equal parts annoyed and determined.

“You look like shit,” is the first thing Taeyong says to him. Donghyuck adds insult to injury by promptly spitting up all over Johnny’s shirt.

“I guess I deserve that,” Johnny laments and it’s really a testament to the seemingly unbreakable knot that he’s tied his life into, that when Taeyong reaches out for Donghyuck, Donghyuck reaches for him back, and Johnny doesn’t hesitate to hand him over.

“Go get cleaned up. Go shower. Then I’ll get into it with you. If I do it right now it’ll feel like kicking you when you’re down.”

Johnny does as he’s told. The shower feels good, washing away dirt and sweat and also some of the tension in Johnny’s shoulders and spine and jaw. It’s the same as last time; the shower exposes just how tired Johnny is to himself, only this time it’s much deeper. It’s more than just body, it’s also mind and spirit.

Johnny leaves his room after his shower dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie and, yeah, he could sleep right now. He could close his eyes and sleep for days.

In the living room, Taeyong has Donghyuck propped against the couch cushions, cocooned by them on either side to properly keep him upright. He’s introducing a plushy to Donghyuck that Johnny’s never seen before, something Taeyong must have brought with him. It’s an elephant, with soft tusks and a soft trunk, that Johnny knows immediately his baby will love to stick it in his mouth.

“Here you go, Hyuckie,” Taeyong is saying, almost in a whisper. He hasn’t realized Johnny is in the room yet and his volume implies he does not intend to be overheard. “Don’t forget about your best friend Yongie just because your dad is being a big dummy, okay?”

Donghyuck strings together a bunch of consonant noises, _guh-guh-guh_ , and as soon as Taeyong gives him the plushy he does, indeed, immediately stick the trunk into his mouth.

Donghyuck babbles something short and loud. Taeyong nods empathetically, “you can say that again, Hyuckie.”

Johnny clears his throat, awkward and nervous in a way that buzzes at the sharpest points of all his nerve endings. He knows where this is heading. He almost wishes Taeyong wouldn’t look at him.

But Taeyong raises his head, and when his gaze meets Johnny’s, his expression immediately hardens.

“I’m mad at you,” he says to Johnny, crossing his arms.

“I know,” as if there could be any way Johnny wouldn’t already know.

Taeyong sighs and, all of a sudden, it’s like all the fight drains out of him. Now he just looks small and kind of sad. The usual acrobatic dance Taeyong can sometimes produce from Johnny’s heart is just slow, methodical beating — so hard and deliberate Johnny can hear every single one in his own ear drums.

“I just don’t know why you’re so determined to make things _harder_ for yourself.”

If Johnny was braver, less worried about shattering this precarious glass castle he’s built for himself — mostly from half-truths, coloured in at the edges with his own imagination, with stuff that could be good if they tried, but they never will try — maybe he would say something like: because there is nothing I’m more afraid than being a bad dad. There is nothing I’m more afraid of than ruining everything. There is nothing I’m more afraid of than the day everyone else leaves, everyone gets their own lives and gets their own families, and it’s just me and my baby and all I know how to do is let him down. I’m afraid he’ll hate me, and I’m afraid you’ll hate me, and I’m afraid the family I made will never be good enough, will never make anyone happy enough, and I’ve been selfish. I’ve been selfish and doomed my baby to this when he could have had something better. Maybe. I keep getting stuck on all the maybes.

But Johnny is not braver, he doesn’t know how to build the foundation of his life on something that will hold it up better, so all he says is:

“I don’t know.” All he says is, “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“All I want to do is help, okay?” Taeyong’s voice is very, very stern. But it is not mean, it is not venomous. It almost sounds like pity — but if Johnny focuses too much on that he’ll feel even worse. “I can set whatever boundaries I want. I can say no. My life is not suffering because I’m helping you with Donghyuck, Johnny.”

_But what if it is? What if there are all these things you are letting pass you by and you don’t even know it? What if I’m keeping you from something and neither of us even know it? How is that fair? All to take care of a baby that isn’t —_

Taeyong drops the other shoe: “I know Jaehyun told you some shit.”

“He just —”

“Stop. I know. I already talked to him. Thoroughly fucking chewed him out,” and the thing is Taeyong is normally decently soft-spoken, or easy-going, and it really has to be something for him to dole out tongue-lashings like this. “I’m a little insulted neither of you think I’m an adult capable of making my own decisions.”

“I don’t think that, Taeyong.”

Taeyong sighs. Donghyuck imitates him, albeit around the stuffed animal in his mouth, and there is one blissful moment where Taeyong and Johnny both look at Johnny’s baby and smile, and it is a stark reminder of all the things Johnny’s been trying to pack away in boxes and shove into the deepest part of his closet.

“Can I just make one thing, like, absolutely clear to you? And then we can go back to paying attention to your baby.” Johnny nods, and so Taeyong continues. “Don’t let me hang out with your baby so much and then just not let me hang out with him at all. That’s not fair. You can’t let me fall in love with your baby and then keep him away from me.”

And, god, if this whole conversation wasn’t worth it just for that. Just for Taeyong to say that, just for him to tell Johnny, “you love my baby?”

“Duh,” Taeyong rolls his eyes. “He’s my best friend. And the best baby in the universe.”

Johnny smiles. He feels so light and airy he might as well be floating, and there is it again — the feeling of his heart in his chest that makes it feel too big for the cage of ribs Johnny keeps it in.

“Yeah.” Johnny replies. “Yeah, he really is.”

*

When Jaehyun comes home that night, it’s just past 8PM. Johnny is on the couch, his sleeping baby in his lap, and across from him is a sleeping Taeyong, curled in on himself with both of his feet tucked under Johnny’s thigh.

“Hey,” Jaehyun says, except it kind of gets caught in his throat and he coughs around the end of it.

Johnny watches him, face placid. “Hey,” he returns.

They don’t say anything for a while. In Johnny’s arms, his baby breathes slow, warm and soft and absolutely the most precious thing Johnny has. Beside him, Taeyong snuffles in his sleep, equally as warm and real and precious to Johnny in his very specific way, and readjusts himself on the couch. And Jaehyun, standing in the living room with his jacket still on, he’s important in his own specific way too.

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun finally says after the long pause. “I’m just trying to look out for everyone.”

Johnny nods. He chances a look at Taeyong out of the corner of his eye; his hair is a mess against his forehead, his mouth is slack and there’s an imprint of the couch against his cheek.

Johnny sighs. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I know, Jaehyun.”


	3. i love the passing of time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off, this is kind of late, sorry about that! secondly, it's kind of a filler chapter. sorry about that also! we're about to hit some real plot movement with this, so this chapter is necessary for setting up a lot of the stuff we're gonna get to moving forward. i hope it includes enough cute moments to make up for at least one -- but hopefully both! -- of those things. it is also looking more and more like this will indeed be six chapters. i'm not changing the number _quite_ yet but, y'know. keep an eye out ;-)
> 
> tysm alex 💛

There is, truthfully, nothing Johnny misses more than a good cup of coffee in the morning.

He is, like, _very_ serious about coffee. It’s the number one thing Jaehyun ribs him for; the collection of beans of different roasts in their cupboards, the various methods Johnny has practiced and perfected to get that sweet, sweet caffeine into his veins. The day Johnny got the package with his (meticulously researched, might he add) Chemex, Jaehyun had given it one look, scoffed and said, “so we’re doing a science experiment every morning for hot bean juice now?”

Johnny had cradled his coffeemaker to his chest, affronted. “Just because you’re happy with the sludge they serve at Starbucks doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”

Since becoming a dad, however, the pour over coffee maker spends a lot of time collecting dust. Johnny’s too busy — especially in the mornings, when Donghyuck is especially grumpy about being hungry — to even consider spending the extra time it takes to craft a truly beautiful cup of coffee.

Like this morning, where Donghyuck is not feeling fully himself, it seems.

Hyuck is usually pretty easy-going in the mornings. His fussing stops as soon as Johnny lifts him out of his crib and as long as Johnny is quick to feed him, mornings are usually pretty uneventful. This morning, however, Donghyuck is much more whiny and moodier. When Johnny had tried to put him down in the living room to go make his bottle, Hyuck had refused to be let go, and when Johnny gently forced him to do so, he had cried so hard Johnny had no choice but to pick him back up. Now Johnny’s in the kitchen trying to make his baby a bottle one-handed.

At least his baby is being quiet, head leaned against Johnny’s shoulder and his fingers in his mouth.

“What’s up with you today, Hyuckie?” Johnny says, trying his best to screw the lid onto a bottle. Donghyuck offers no reply, only a heavy breath. “Just one of those days? Okay, baby, I get it.”

He kisses the top of Donghyuck’s head. Donghyuck burrows in closer.

*

Donghyuck is still weird and clingy even after his bottle. Johnny lays with him on the couch, Hyuck more than content to curl into Johnny, clutching his duck plushie and sucking his thumb, and stay there as long as possible.

Johnny’s phone ringing pulls him and his baby both from the fringes of half-sleep, screen illuminated with the name _Ten_.

“Hello?” Johnny answers. From his spot still laying against Johnny’s chest, Donghyuck looks up at him curiously.

“Johnny,” Ten’s voice comes through the receiver. “Jaehyun’s not answering my calls. Is he home right now?”

“Uh,” Johnny pauses for a moment, considering. “No. No, I think he told me he had an interview for an audio engineering gig today.”

Ten sighs. He and Taeyong teach at the same dance studio, and for the last however many years Jaehyun’s been in his chosen career, he’s been doing the engineering for their end of the term productions for cheaper than probably anyone else would.

That’s where Taeyong is right now, actually; the dance studio, probably equally as stressed about all of this as Ten seems to be. Or, from what Johnny can tell from being on the phone with him.

“Hey, Ten?” Ten doesn’t answer, simply hums to signal to Johnny that he’s still listening. “Are you — are you busy right now?”

“Well, since Jaehyun is nowhere to be found, no, I guess not.” Ten starts the sentence sort of genuinely annoyed (but not in any way that will really go past this exact moment, in the grand scheme of Jaehyun and Ten’s friendship) but by the end of it, he sounds more agreeable.

“Oh, well,” Johnny narrowly avoids Hyuck’s hand reaching out for the phone, and instead ends up with his baby’s hand slapping against his chin. “Hyuckie and I were just sitting at home and I was — well, if you’re really not busy, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to meet for coffee? For lunch?”

At the mention of Donghyuck, Ten seems to melt even further.

They haven’t even met yet. Beyond Jaehyun and Taeyong, none of Johnny’s friends have met his baby. It’s not on purpose, it’s just that nothing has quite ever made Johnny as busy as being a single dad, trying to keep his own and his baby’s heads above water. But he really would like it, for all his friends to know his baby. To be able to share his favourite person in the world with some of his other favourite people.

So when Ten says, “yes! Okay, of course. You’re bringing your baby? Of course!” Johnny can’t help the smile that makes his cheeks sore from appearing on his face.

*

They go to a small coffee shop not far from Johnny and Jaehyun’s apartment, one that serves a small selection of lunch items and some desserts. Ten is already seated when Johnny shows up, looking well put-together in his earth-toned orange sweater. In comparison, Johnny enters clutching his baby and with a diaper bag thrown over his shoulder, dressed fine but looking that a little bit frazzled — a permanent staple in all Johnny’s looks these days.

(His baby, for the record, looks great. He’s wearing soft black and white pants made of cotton. Tucked into them is a black long-sleeve printed with the face of a koala on the front and Johnny’s put the denim jacket his mom sent for Hyuck in the mail over that. His baby is very, very fashionable. It helps that he looks cute in everything.)

Ten waves Johnny over and Johnny settles into the seat across from him, Hyuck balanced in his lap and the bag at their feet. Ten just looks at them for a second, hands folded together and chin resting on them. Then, he sighs and says, “I expected this to be much weirder.”

“How so?” Johnny wrestles Donghyuck’s duckie out of the bag, sets it on the table in front of him. Donghyuck, mesmerized by new people as he always is, simply stares at Ten. He’ll appreciate the duck’s presence later, though. Johnny is sure.

Ten shrugs. “I don’t know. It suits you, weirdly enough — the dad thing. No matter how fast it happened.”

It’s nice, speaking with Ten. Johnny has spent the majority of the last few months existing entirely in his own bubble; and the only other people who have been a part of that bubble are people that have come to him. It feels good to reach out, to extend the hand instead of having the hand extended to him. It feels like Johnny has some control over the category three tornado his life has become. This feels like something closer to the life Johnny was living before — only it’s better (not easier, to be fair, but better) because he has his baby, who is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

He and Ten talk about nothing and anything and everything. Johnny details some of the major changes that his life has gone through since procuring this little baby duck; Ten goes through some of the finer points of the recent day to day at the dance studio. Johnny orders a truly wonderfully brewed cappuccino and he and Ten both slowly pick at their respective sandwiches. Between them, Donghyuck gums at half a banana emphatically.

“I never leave my house anymore and yet my life has never been more busy,” Johnny says to Ten, who laughs around the straw of his iced matcha latte.

“I’m not a parent, so I wouldn’t know for sure,” Ten shrugs. “But I assume it gets easier. That’s gotta be why people have more than one kid, right?”

Johnny shakes his head. He looks down at Hyuck, who is the cutest ever, but also has banana smeared all over his cheeks and chin. He tries to imagine two more of him, or even just one. “I think I’m good with just the one, I think.”

This is when Donghyuck promptly fumbles the remnants of his banana out of his tiny hands and it falls on the floor with a small _splat_. He leans forward in Johnny’s lap, straining against Johnny’s one-handed grip on his waist, to look at the sad mess of his banana on the floor. Then he looks up at Johnny, lip jutting out and eyes wide and already filled with big fat tears.

Johnny knows he’s about to cry before Hyuck even lets out his very first wail.

It’s kind of embarrassing, having your kid screaming over what was arguably about half a bite left of a banana in a coffee shop. Some people turn to look and Johnny immediately colours, cheeks and chest red with discomfort.

“Hyuckie, it’s a banana,” Johnny says to his baby quietly. “Chill out. I give you one, like, every morning.”

Ten reaches his arms across the table. “Can I see him?”

And see, Johnny knows that Ten up close might just be the perfect distraction to get Donghyuck to stop thinking about his banana, so he doesn’t hesitate to hand him over. Ten doesn’t take Donghyuck into his lap; rather, Ten sits Hyuck on the table in front of him, leaning close with an arm around Hyuck’s back to keep him from falling.

Just as Johnny suspected: Donghyuck catches up with what’s just happened, and he has immediately abandoned all thought of his banana to blink blankly at Ten.

“Hello, cutie,” Ten coos, and when he gently pinches Donghyuck’s still messy cheek, Donghyuck actually laughs. Then, Ten says to Johnny, “he really likes new people, huh?”

“Yeah,” Johnny nods, watching the way his baby slowly warms up to Ten, smiling at him more and more. “I think he just likes attention. That’s why Taeyong’s his favourite, probably. He always pays attention to him.”

The table is quiet for a few beats. Ten makes a face at Donghyuck, and Donghyuck laughs, and then he reaches out to put his dirty hands on Ten’s face. Ten doesn’t seem like he minds.

“Yong says he’s over at your place a lot,” Ten says next. It does not sound accusatory, it does not sound like the way Jaehyun had said it that one time. That one time Johnny doesn’t like to think about. “To help, right?”

“He is,” Johnny replies. “I worry about taking advantage sometimes. But he’s a big help. I think I’d go crazy if he wasn’t around.”

Ten nods. “That’s good,” he pulls Donghyuck a little closer to him, his arm coming to encircle Donghyuck fully. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, y’know? From what I can tell he really likes helping out.”

When Ten says it he gives Johnny this sort of knowing look. But, see, the problem is that Johnny has no idea what he knows. The look offers no clarity, only further questions. Johnny wishes he could ask the questions he wants the answers to, but he’s not quite sure if he knows how.

Then, Ten says, “you two have always had that weird — well, y’know.”

And, see, the other problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what that means either. Chemistry? Tension? The hidden promise of something that’s below the surface, if only they could find a way to dig it out? Only, it might not be a promise at all. Johnny can’t guarantee anything to do with Taeyong, promise or not, and it would be unfair of him to put that kind of thing solely onto Taeyong.

But, again: Johnny does not quite know how to ask the question, so all he does is pretend to know what Ten means. He nods. Ten sighs. “Like I said,” he repeats, “don’t worry about it too much.”

They go quiet again. A worker comes by and clears away some plates. Ten speaks before Johnny can think of anything to fill the silence himself.

“We should get together more,” he’s musing as Johnny hands him a baby wipe, something to finally clean off Donghyuck’s hands and face and Ten’s own face afterwards. “Like, none of your friends have met your baby. Which is criminal, by the way, because he’s the cutest.”

“I know he is,” Johnny replies, smiling. Donghyuck is playing with his duck plushie and then he shoves it in Ten’s face, as if to present it to him very proudly. “This was nice, by the way. Thanks for doing this with me.”

“I’m serious, Johnny. Let’s do something soon,” is all Ten says in response.

*

The party is, ultimately, Taeyong’s idea.

He brings it up when Johnny is trying and mostly failing to scoop rice cereal into his baby’s mouth. Donghyuck’s in his high chair, looking so cute with his little duck-printed bib and big doe eyes, but he also still hates eating rice cereal. So every single time Johnny convinces Donghyuck to open up, Donghyuck pushes half the spoonful of food out with his tongue, and then Johnny is left scraping up the mess on his baby’s chin and trying again.

Taeyong’s in the kitchen with them, half-watching Johnny struggle and half-washing Johnny’s dishes.

“We should have a party,” Taeyong says it like it’s a brilliant idea that has just come to him, the proverbial lightbulb going off above his head.

“Uuuuuh,” Johnny drags the syllable out, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. “I don’t know about that. Pretty sure I’d ruin the vibe if I brought my baby to a party.”

“No, no,” Taeyong shakes his head, drying his hands with Johnny’s kitchen towel. “The party would be _for_ your baby.”

Johnny furrows his brow. Donghyuck spits out all the rice cereal in his mouth and it gets all over his chubby baby hands, but then he’s sticking them back in his mouth and, well — not the most efficient way to eat, but it’s better than nothing.

“Why would my baby need a party? His birthday is in June.”

“Because it’s his half-birthday! That’s special!” Johnny looks at Taeyong incredulously, unconvinced.

“I mean — think of it like this,” Taeyong elaborates. “People usually have baby showers, right? Before their baby is born. People bring them stuff for the baby and they give them money and all that. And, obviously, you didn’t get one of those. And you have your baby now, sure, but it could be like that. People could bring you things to help and we’ll just say it’s for Hyuckie’s half-birthday.”

At the mention of his name, Donghyuck squeals. Johnny can’t believe his baby recognizes his own name now. He’s so smart and he’s growing up way too fast.

Johnny hums. There are some things he’s still missing that feel essential for baby care. He read somewhere that Donghyuck needs more stimulating toys now that he’s halfway to a year. There’s a lot of stuff Johnny could afford to be given, or at least helped with paying for.

“Also, like, none of our other friends have met your baby. Mark went on an _at least_ thirty minute rant about it the other day.”

“Hey! I am very busy! I have a baby.”

“Speaking of your baby: can he have cake? Should I make a cake for his half-birthday?”

By this point, Donghyuck has licked his fingers clean and is looking expectantly up at Johnny, eyes big and disposition sunny. There’s still some rice cereal left in the bowl — but Johnny knows, as soon as he tries to feed it to Hyuck again, it’ll be much the same as last time.

So, he relents — his baby has won this round — and hands Donghyuck the bottle of formula that Johnny knows is what he really wants.

“I did not say you could throw my baby a party yet,” Johnny corrects. Taeyong gives him these pleading eyes then, laying it on entirely too thick, and Johnny is, once again, folding for the people he cares about. “Fine. We’ll have a half-birthday party for my baby.”

Taeyong hoots in triumph and immediately unclips Donghyuck and pulls him out of his high chair.

“Do you hear that, Hyuckie? I’m gonna throw you a party,” and Hyuck is literally still covered in rice cereal and holding his bottle but Taeyong is tossing him around, making him laugh. “It’s gonna be the best half-birthday party ever for the best baby ever.”

“This is all very endearing,” Johnny watches Taeyong flit about his kitchen with his baby. “But he just ate. If you keep doing that to him my baby will most definitely throw up on you.”

“A risk I’m willing to take,” Taeyong replies curtly, and he brings Donghyuck’s giggling face close enough to Johnny’s so Johnny can kiss his nose. He tastes like bland rice cereal, but Johnny loves him so much, so, whatever.

*

Taeyong takes the half-birthday planning very seriously.

Johnny lets him. It’s sort of like an apology for the mess Johnny put them all through (“them all” being: himself, Taeyong, his baby, Jaehyun, to a certain extent), or it would be if it didn’t feel so entirely self-indulgent.

It’s so easy to fall back into it: imagining a family that doesn’t exist. Taeyong keeps all the party supplies he buys hidden from Johnny, tucked away somewhere in Jaehyun’s room. He keeps taking phone calls in other rooms, equal parts secretive and endearing. He reminds Donghyuck every day, “a week until your party, little dude.” Even though Johnny is not sure how firm Hyuck’s grasp on the passage of time is, Taeyong tells him, “four days until your big day, cutie.”

It is very, very self indulgent because Taeyong loves Johnny’s baby — and seeing the proof of that through actions puts Johnny on cloud nine, high above any cloud that could ever rain on his happiness. He almost slips up over and over. Almost tells Taeyong things like _my favourite thing to look at is you with my baby_ and _I care about both of you so much I think I might have to grow a second heart to fit all my feelings_. God, Johnny is screwed. Like, well and truly fucked. He would say he wishes he could stop but it would be a lie. He is happy to live in half-truths, in a world where he fills in the blanks however he pleases, no matter how far fetched, rather than with the most likely option.

(The thing is: sometimes Johnny forgets he’s pretending. Sometimes Taeyong will hold Johnny’s baby, and he’ll murmur little things against his soft skin, and nuzzle his cheeks, and kiss his forehead, and be so tender and loving and the lines will blur. And Johnny will catch himself wondering if he’s closer to the truth than he had ever thought previously but — no, no, that can’t be it. Johnny has to be more careful. He keeps slipping up.

But — but it’s got to count for something. Maybe Taeyong is just doing him a favour, maybe he’ll leave when it’s time to make his own family, a real one, not the one Johnny dreams up for them. But he cares about Donghyuck, doesn’t he? He must. The stuff Taeyong does for Donghyuck is not something you do for someone you don’t care about. And Taeyong says it, too. Usually when he’s sleepy, and Donghyuck is sleepy too, he’ll murmur something like, “love you, kiddo.” It’s usually so low he must be trying to keep Johnny from hearing, maybe, but he’s just not able to keep himself from saying it at all.

Okay, so maybe family is a little more nebulous of a concept than Johnny once thought. Maybe your family can just be the people who care about you. Maybe Donghyuck’s family is bigger than Johnny could ever imagine and maybe, just maybe, they won’t have a reason to leave one day.

Johnny can dream.)

*

The day of Donghyuck’s meticulously planned half-birthday party, Taeyong shows up just before noon with two presents and a box from a bakery.

“My baby cannot eat cake,” Johnny says as he lets Taeyong in, Donghyuck watching with his head in the crook of Johnny’s neck, clutching his little duck around its own.

“Shush. The cake is for us. I got your baby something else. Now will you please take your kid to the park? I got work to do.”

Johnny leans to look around Taeyong, trying to catch a glimpse of the sky through the living room window. It’s December, but the weather in Korea is still quite tepid, no harsh chill to the air that Johnny knew from back in Chicago. Today, it is overcast but not quite dark enough to look like it might rain. Not for a few hours, at least. Okay. He can take his baby outside. His baby likes outside.

They go to the park down the street from the apartment. Johnny dresses Donghyuck in his party outfit; a pair of pale blue overalls with safari animals printed on the front pocket and little brown faux-leather shoes. Johnny puts him in a beanie and a navy blue jacket, suitable for this kind of weather. Hyuck gives him a gummy baby smile after Johnny adjusts his hat and, yeah, Johnny really probably does have the cutest baby on the planet.

Donghyuck likes sitting in the grass, he kicks his legs in excitement when Johnny sets him down, and rubs his palms back and forth across the blades of it automatically. He likes bugs too. He lets a beetle crawl all over his chubby little legs and arms, until Johnny gets nervous that his baby’s next mission will be to put the bug in his mouth and he swats it away.

Eventually, Johnny puts Donghyuck into one of those baby swings, pulling his hat low to keep the sun out of his eyes, and gently pushes him back and forth.

There’s some other kids at the park, all of them older than Donghyuck, all of them able to walk, and Donghyuck watches them all with rapt interest. Johnny watches, too, and he slowly comes to realize he’s the only dad at the park with his kid, and he tries very hard to not let it make him feel uncomfortable.

At this point, Johnny has had Donghyuck for around two months, and he is used to being noticed. He knows other couples eye him in grocery stores, and when he’s buying Donghyuck clothes, and when he takes Donghyuck to his doctor's appointments. He knows people notice. They don’t even know Donghyuck’s name but, somehow, they can just figure out something is off. That Donghyuck has a dad, and that’s Johnny, and that he doesn’t have a mom. Like Johnny makes him wear a nametag with that printed on it, or like it’s projected in big neon lights over his baby’s head.

(One time, Johnny had been in line at the checkout, and Donghyuck had been fussing, annoyed and hungry and probably a little sleepy. This was a week he had been ignoring Taeyong and Johnny had been frustrated, in more ways than one — and he shouldn’t have snapped — but when the woman behind him had leaned over and cooed at his baby, said _he must miss his mama_ , well. He couldn’t really have helped the way he spit, _actually, it’s just me and my son, thank you very much_. The look she had given Johnny after he said it had been so affronted but, still, he had a hard time feeling bad about it. Especially when his baby had been about to start wailing.)

It’s a relief, then, when Johnny’s phone finally buzzes with a notification from Taeyong.

_Come home_ , it says, _make sure to bring your baby_.

*

They don’t shout “surprise!” when Johnny comes through the door but enough people coo when they catch sight of Donghyuck that it shocks him enough to get him to jump. Donghyuck doesn’t cry, despite the startle, only goes wide-eyed and clutches his little tiny fists tighter into Johnny’s jacket.

The apartment is decorated in a way that is entirely _too much_ for a baby’s half-birthday. Streamers are hung in every corner, balloons gathered in bunches across the living room. There’s a poster board that proclaims _HAPPY HALF-BIRTHDAY HYUCKIE_ and there is, indeed, a cake and next to it — a small bowl of applesauce, lovingly garnished (as best as it can be) with a single, small candle.

Taeyong is quick to extract Donghyuck from Johnny’s grip, planting a few small kisses against Donghyuck’s slightly pink cheeks. “Take off your coat,” Taeyong says to Johnny, “get settled. I’ll parade him around.”

Johnny nods, smiling wide.

Taeyong’s invited a good group of people; there’s Mark, wearing a crooked party hat that Taeyong most definitely put on him, and Taeil wearing one that matches. There’s Ten, his boyfriend Kun, and Doyoung, all gathered around the edge of the couch, smiling. Jungwoo is stealing prawn crackers from a bowl on the counter, Yuta hovering by him. It’s friends Johnny has seen recently and other friends he has not seen recently at all, all gathered to meet his baby.

Johnny’s heart has never been so full.

*

No one asks Johnny for any of the details about how he got Donghyuck.

Johnny’s not sure if Taeyong already told them everything, or told them, at least, to not ask about it — but either way he’s thankful. He’s not ashamed of it, he could never be ashamed of it, but sometimes it’s just easier to not be asked. To just enjoy a night with his friends.

His friends who, by the way, are totally obsessed with his baby.

Taeyong is mildly perturbed to have to share Donghyuck. Though he’d never admit, Johnny can just tell. But everyone gets their time with the baby; Ten spends about twenty minutes bouncing Donghyuck on his knee, making him laugh and flail his arms. Taeil takes his allotted baby time at arm’s length, but Donghyuck likes him a lot regardless. Doyoung sings at him, softly, and Hyuck does not make a single noise as he does, just looks up at Doyoung with his undivided attention, about as amazed as a baby can be.

It is almost comical to watch Mark handle Johnny’s baby. He looks entirely out of his element, balancing Donghyuck’s bouncing feet on his knees, holding Donghyuck up with a hand under either of his armpits. But Donghyuck seems to be obsessed with Mark, tugging at his hair and his nose and his cheeks, wriggling closer to him and getting excited whenever Mark pays him proper attention.

“Your baby has good taste,” Mark says, when Johnny mentions it.

“The best taste,” Taeyong agrees, coming back into the living room. He’s holding a plate with a piece of cake on it, which he hands to Johnny, sitting next to him on the floor. Their knees brush. Johnny doesn’t move away. “He’s my best friend.”

Johnny takes a bite of cake, and it’s so good, and for some reason it makes him think about family again. He thinks about all these people, who are meeting Johnny’s baby for the first time, who may become a part of Donghyuck’s life forever. That every moment they spend together strengthens this relationship that is beyond friendship, that every day is another memory that Donghyuck may not actually remember, but is something that Johnny can recount to him as he gets older.

_The first year I had you, Hyuckie, your uncle Taeyong threw you a half-birthday party. And everyone came, y’know, just to meet you. We had so much fun. You were so cute. Everyone loved you so much. It made us all so happy._

Taeyong must notice Johnny day-dreaming. He nudges Johnny’s shoulder with his own and when Johnny looks over at him he is smiling. He looks warm, and adorable, and so soft in the light that comes in through the open apartment windows. The room narrows to just Taeyong for a second, no one else exists, and it’s like every other day that it’s just Johnny and Taeyong and Donghyuck, but it’s more too. Johnny wishes he had more words to describe it. Had better ways to sort out the mess of emotions in his head. But he doesn’t. So he lets things wash over him in waves and he waits for the words to come to him. Hopes that eventually they will. Some day.

Mark gets a look of pure terror on his face when Donghyuck starts to fuss in his grip, whining in a low-pitch that gets really loud really fast. Johnny’s still eating his slice of cake, and Taeyong springs up immediately.

“He’s probably just hungry,” Taeyong explains, taking Donghyuck out of Mark’s arms. “He can eat his half-birthday applesauce now!”

Johnny swallows a mouthful. “Milk, first! Milk and then applesauce, Taeyong!”

Johnny catches Jaehyun out of the corner of his eye, with this look that seems half-concerned, half-resigned. Johnny ignores him — but the gnawing in his gut is a little harder to keep off of his mind.

*

Eventually, people start handing Johnny gifts with Donghyuck’s name on them.

It’s a lot of plush toys — ducks and bunnies and bears — and soft blankets. Ten and Kun gift Donghyuck a handful of cute outfits and Mark hands over some basic puzzles and a collection of toys that are all about fitting the correct shapes into the correct holes. Donghyuck, in true baby fashion, becomes obsessed with a cardboard box that some blocks Doyoung brought him came in, and spends most of the rest of the party playing with that.

At some point, Taeyong gets this very mischievous look in his eye. He keeps looking at Johnny, in a way that tells Johnny that Taeyong obviously doesn’t want him to notice he’s doing it.

Donghyuck is sleeping on the floor, Johnny on his right, when Taeyong finally pulls the present out of its hiding place.

It’s a simple silver bag, stuffed with silver parchment paper. Johnny immediately shakes his head when he sees it being handed to him, “you guys — you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“We wanted to,” Taeyong replies. “A bunch of us put some money in. Mostly Jaehyunnie and I. And your mom too.”

Johnny furrows his brow. His mom? Who consulted his mom? What was such an amazing gift for _Johnny_ on his _son’s_ half-birthday that warranted an intervention from his mom? Then — suddenly, a thought comes to Johnny. But there’s no way —

Johnny digs his hand into the gift, closes his thumb and forefinger around a few pieces of paper. And when he pulls them out it’s — it’s a flight itinerary. From Chicago O’Hare to Incheon International. Johnny’s breath gets caught in his throat.

“There’s no way —”

“It’s for your mom,” Taeyong beams, proud. “She’s gonna come visit next month.”

And Johnny, quite frankly, can’t believe he’s been given a gift so special. That his mom will finally get to meet Donghyuck, finally get to hold him and spoil him and just _be around him_ and be around Johnny too. And maybe he’ll finally find some solace in her reassurance, in the knowledge she’s gained from raising her own kid. Maybe just being in her presence will wash a calm over Johnny he has lacked since he started doing this all on his own.

“Thanks,” Johnny says, emotion clogging up his throat. “Thank you guys so much.”

His friends all smile at him — Johnny smiles at Taeyong.

*

Slowly, Johnny’s friends all filter out. Especially now that all the gifts have been opened and all Hyuck seemingly wants to do is nap. Jaehyun retreats to his bedroom, definitely tired and maybe a little tipsy from the beers he shared with Doyoung. Donghyuck sleeps soundly on blankets laid out on the living room floor, still, watched over by all his new stuffed toys, and Taeyong and Johnny share opposite sides of the sink, determined to not leave the dishes to sit until tomorrow.

Johnny passes Taeyong a plate to dry, and he says, “this was really nice, Yonggie. It was lots of fun. Thank you for planning it.”

Johnny can’t stop thinking about his mom meeting his baby. This morning he had no idea when that would happen, tonight he’ll go to sleep knowing it’s barely two weeks away.

Taeyong beams with pride. “You bet it was. The most fun. Only the best for Hyuckie.”

Johnny gives a short laugh in response and they lull into comforting silence again, just the sounds of water sloshing and the scrape of dishes against dishes.

Johnny wonders idly if he’s ever been this happy before. He doesn’t think so. Something about the captured sun rays in his chest feel entirely new. Its closest rival is, maybe, the day he got Donghyuck. But even that happiness was tinged with fear and worry — and that’s okay, it didn’t mean it was any less wonderful — but there is something different about the pure, unfiltered happiness he feels now.

He wants more of it. But he’s afraid to reach out and grasp it. He’s afraid he doesn’t deserve it.

Taeyong dries the last dish and then he turns to Johnny, a very specific glint to his eye.

“I might have one more surprise,” he smiles.

“Taeyong,” Johnny sputters. “Taeyong, you’ve already done too much.”

“Shut up. No, I haven’t.”

Johnny wants to protest more. He wants to tell Taeyong he doesn’t know how he’ll repay him for all this; all the generosity and the warmth and love. But Taeyong is already producing a flat, velvet box from his pocket and handing it to Johnny.

“Taeyong,” Johnny breathes. The box is soft in Johnny’s hands.

“Just open it. It’s not like I can bring it back.”

It’s a bracelet; sitting there, snug, in the little navy velvet box is a silver chain bracelet. There are two, small rectangular charms attached to it, inscribed with six numbers each. Johnny only has to squint at the numbers for a second before Taeyong is explaining.

“Donghyuck’s birthday,” he says, lifting one delicate charm between his thumb and forefinger. His hand is so close to Johnny’s. “And the day you picked him up because — because I thought that was important too. And it’s special, it’s something that the two of you have that’s special.” Johnny is stunned into silence, Taeyong keeps talking. “That’s why I called your mom in the first place — to find out when you picked Hyuck up the first time — the other gift came after. So. I had this one first anyway.”

Johnny wants to kiss him so badly.

It has always been this arbitrary thing; he knows he’s attracted to Taeyong, he knows there is something distinctly, wholly Taeyong that makes him the focal point of Johnny’s day-dreaming. He knows he wants him, has wanted him, will continue to want him. But there is something about this moment. Something that has never made the desire in Johnny’s gut quite so hard to ignore. Something that makes that desire, that yearning, unmistakable in its intentions, so physical. It feels inescapable. So, this is it. So, Johnny wants to kiss Taeyong.

He considers it for a very long while. He leans into Taeyong’s body. Taeyong tilts his face up, as if anticipating something, whether he’s aware of it or it’s something more subconscious. It would be so easy — to just gently take Taeyong’s face in both of Johnny’s hands, slot their mouths together like a key into a lock, a puzzle piece into the spot where it’s missing. They are so close. They are breathing in tandem. Johnny wants to kiss Taeyong so badly.

But he doesn’t. Ultimately, the moment passes.

“This is beautiful, Taeyong.” Johnny finally finds the words to thank him. “I’m not sure what to say.”

“Just that you like it,” Taeyong shrugs.

Johnny meets his eyes. He will not be misunderstood, not when he tells Taeyong, “I love it.”

That night, Taeyong sleeps next to Johnny in his bed, curled up with his face so close to the curve of Johnny’s shoulder that Johnny can feel his exhales against his skin.

Johnny doesn’t think this will ever, ever be enough, but it will always be better than being alone. So, he will take what he can get, and he will let it lie, and when it’s gone he will mourn what was and what never was.


	4. did i find you or you find me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peep the chapter count increase. we're officially in this for two more chapters, boys. thank you for all the wonderful feedback i've been receiving since starting this. i appreciate it so much <3 and thank you, as usual, to alex for looking this over.
> 
> anyway [lizzo voice] i've been waiting for this one . . . turn it up

The email arrives in Johnny’s inbox bearing a timestamp for 4:56AM. It’s just past 7AM when he actually reads it.

It says:

_Johnny,_

_I hope it’s okay for me to reach out to you this way. I didn’t want to be too presumptuous but I thought this might be the best way to speak to you. I think it might put less pressure on you than a phone call or a text._

_It’s Jieun, by the way._

_I was wondering if there was any way you might send over a few photos of Donghyuck? I hope this isn’t weird of me to ask? Or rude. But I remember us talking about it a few months ago and, if it’s alright with you obviously, I’d love to see some pictures of him. I’m sure he’s grown a lot since I last saw him._

_I was also wondering if, maybe, one day, I might be able to visit? Not right now, I don’t think I’m ready for that yet but I would like to see him in person at some point. I know we haven’t discussed this, and at the end of the day, it’s your call. He’s your son. But if that’s something you'd be willing to do, or even just discuss in the future, let me know. I’d really appreciate it._

_Thank you._

In Johnny’s arms, Donghyuk hums around his bottle. Johnny looks down at him and smiles, despite it being early morning and the sleepiness that fogs his brain.

When he turns back to the email still sitting on his phone screen, he sighs.

“Hyuckie,” he coos down at his baby, exiting his Mail app on his phone and locking it. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about all this.”

*

There are parts of being a dad that get easier.

Donghyuck is seven months old now, Johnny has had him for three of those months, and despite the constant changes Johnny’s baby goes through on a regular basis — it does get easier the more he does it.

Johnny gets better at telling what Hyuck wants when he starts crying. He gets better at feeding Hyuck solids, though that’s mostly through trial and error. He gets better at multitasking, gets better at snatching winks of sleep whenever he can. He gets better at taking his eyes off of Hyuck for a few minutes, knowing he won’t spontaneously combust or something, and the guilt he had felt for leaving Donghyuck is his own room to sleep every night subsides. There are still days that are hard, days where things get heavy; Johnny, however, has become increasingly good at bouncing back from those days.

He gets better at letting people help. He gets better at letting people watch Donghyuck for him, letting other people hold him without feeling the aggressive pull of thread on his heart that makes him want to hold his baby, keep him all for himself. He trusts more people now.

Some things about being a dad do not get easier.

Johnny hesitates to call himself a _good_ dad — he tries his best, that’s all he can really do, and he’s not quite sure if that qualifies him as anything better than mediocre. Being a dad is still the hardest thing he’s ever done. He still makes mistakes, seemingly will continue to make them forever. He still gets overwhelmed, thinks about giving up, wonders when this will finally feel less like running a marathon up a mountain. Wonders when he will finally have the upper hand, will finally have answers for every question that arrives, quicker and quicker, every day that Donghyuck gets older.

It’s frustrating. Johnny has got the best kid in the whole world. And yet Johnny can’t even thank him for it by managing to be an above average dad.

There are so many things Johnny wishes he could give Donghyuck. Johnny thinks about his relationship with his own mother — how she was the single most important person in Johnny’s life, until Donghyuck came into it. How she always did everything he needed as a kid, sometimes without him even having to ask. How every day with her he felt loved, he felt safe, he felt like there would always be someone to catch him if he fell. He thinks about how Donghyuck doesn’t have that — a mom, maybe, but also something less specific than that. The concept of two parents, of always having those two people on your side, of knowing that two people cared about you the most in the whole world.

Donghyuck doesn’t _need_ a mom. He really doesn’t. But — but what if he wakes up one day and realizes he doesn’t have one? What happens the day he realizes he’s different? What happens when his brain tricks him into thinking that makes him less than?

What does Johnny say then? _Your mama didn’t want you, baby, I’m sorry_? No. He can’t say that. It would break his baby’s heart.

Maybe Johnny is making a problem out of nothing. Donghyuck can’t even talk yet, let alone understand how his life is different from anyone else’s. He’s happy. Johnny should enjoy his baby’s ignorant bliss while he can.

But it’s hard. But maybe the problem isn’t Donghyuck. Maybe the problem is Johnny just wants something that feels more like a family, in the traditional sense of the word, and he wants it so bad.

*

Johnny’s mom’s flight arrives on a Tuesday, mid-afternoon. He takes Donghyuck with him to meet her at the airport. Taeyong comes too.

Donghyuck falls asleep in the backseat, clutching the same duck plushie Jaehyun brought him home months ago, looking angelic.

“My mom is gonna love my baby so much,” Johnny says, glancing at Hyuck in the rearview.

Taeyong looks up from his phone, sat in the passenger seat. “Dude,” he replies, smiling. “She’s gonna be obsessed with him like the rest of us.”

The drive is mostly quiet. Neither of them feel the need to fill up the space of this moment with words. Taeyong seems content to let Johnny bask in what’s to come, in the happiness they are — all of them — about to share.

Only, something has been weighing on Johnny’s mind, for just a few hours, and it’s there right now. It’s nagging at the base of his neck like a spider, the tiny pinpricks of its legs and the unexpected pain of its teeth sinking in. Johnny shakes his head, attempts to clear it away, but it sticks. It’s stuck.

“Taeyong,” he says tentatively, voice low even though it would be difficult for him to wake his baby if he spoke at a normal volume. “Can I — I wanna talk to you about something.”

Johnny does not turn his head to see the look Taeyong gives him — but he can feel Taeyong’s gaze settle on him all the same. “What is it?”

Johnny’s hands fidget around the steering wheel, gripping it tight, then releasing it for a lighter hold. “Jieun sent me an e-mail this morning.”

There is a long stretch of silence. Johnny counts the seconds. Taeyong breathes slowly. “What did it say?” He asks.

“It wasn’t very long,” Johnny’s throat feels constricted. “But she asked for some pictures and she — she said she wasn’t ready for it yet, but she asked if one day I’d be willing to let her see him.”

Johnny still does not look at Taeyong. Instead, he glances at his baby, again, in the rearview mirror. He hears Taeyong’s sharp intake of breath. “What did you say?”

“I haven’t responded yet.” _I don’t know how to respond yet_ , Johnny doesn’t say but he thinks is implied just the same. It’s the only reason he’s bringing this up. He’s desperate for some kind of guidance, from the only person who’s close enough to the situation to see it somewhat similar to how Johnny does. Only maybe he’d be able to see something Johnny has missed, offer a new perspective. Johnny is desperate to not have this hanging over his head with his mom around.

“You’re not — Johnny, you’re not thinking of saying yes, are you?”

“I already told her I’d send pictures. Before I took him, that was part of the agreement.” And it was, that’s not a lie.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Taeyong sounds upset. “I’m talking about you letting her see Donghyuck.”

“She’s his mom, Yong.” Which is the truth, and a perfectly acceptable reason for it to happen, Johnny thinks, but the words do not sound confident coming out of his mouth.

“She didn’t want to be!” Taeyong’s voice suddenly jumps a few registers. Johnny glances nervously — or maybe hopefully, hoping for an excuse to drop this — back at Donghyuck, but his baby is still fast asleep. “That’s what you told me. You told me she said she didn’t want to be his mom. And that’s fine, that worked for you guys, but that doesn’t mean she just gets to come in and out of Hyuckie’s life as she pleases.”

“Just because she isn’t around right now doesn’t mean she’s _no one_ to him, Taeyong,” Johnny’s hands now clutch the steering wheel continuously, the skin of his knuckles bright white, the bones of them looking like shards of glass threatening to pierce through. “It’s not fair of me to say she can never see him. She took care of him when he was a baby. She carried him for nine months and gave birth to him.”

“So?” Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny can see Taeyong cross his arms and shake his head. “Who cares if it’s not fair? She doesn’t take care of him anymore. We take care of him. I can’t believe you would consider —”

“Yong,” Johnny cuts him off. “No offence but I’m Hyuck’s dad, okay? Whatever decision I make —”

“You _asked me_ —”

“I know.” They’re pulling into the airport, now, and Johnny regrets even bringing this up. He had just been — he doesn’t know. He had wanted some perspective. He hadn’t expected Taeyong to immediately be on the offensive. “I was looking for some — I don’t know — I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t expect you to react like this.”

“I’m sorry, what would have been an appropriate reaction for you? Do you value my opinion that little that you don’t care what I have to say —”

Johnny hits the brakes a little too hard. Half because he was distracted and hadn’t seen the car in front of him, half because he’s just — fucking frustrated. He hates this whole conversation. In the backseat, jarred awake and now upset, Donghyuck starts to whine.

“Taeyong,” Johnny doesn’t mean for his voice to sound the way it does; aggressive, final. He looks at Taeyong and finds he has shrunken away from Johnny — only a little bit, probably subconsciously — and looks taken aback. “He’s _my_ son. You can have whatever opinion you’d like but I make the decisions. That’s how it works.”

By this point, Donghyuck is crying in full force. He’s dropped his duck somewhere below him. Johnny scrambles to find it for him one-handedly, gently shushing him.

Taeyong is looking ahead, at everything besides Johnny, and he is very, very quiet.

*

Johnny’s mood is sour for about twenty minutes; but when the sea of people at _Arrivals_ parts and Johnny can see his mom, when he points her out to his baby, grabs his chubby little arm by the wrist and waves at her for him, well, he can’t help all the happiness and excitement that bubble up in him.

“Oh,” she coos and Johnny can already see the tears well up in the corner of her eyes. “Is that my little one? Little baby Hyuckie? Come see your halmeoni.”

Johnny is smiling ear-to-ear when he lets his mom take Donghyuck into her own arms. Even Taeyong — still at his side in the airport despite their earlier argument, and who has been stone-faced up until this moment — Johnny can see, is smiling.

Johnny’s mom presses kisses all over Donghyuck’s cheeks. Donghyuck giggles, at first, and then when the onslaught continues he’s down right squealing with happiness. He loves attention and he loves new people and Johnny wouldn’t be surprised if his very smart, very perceptive baby, knew from the moment he saw Johnny’s mom that this was someone who loved him.

Johnny doesn’t think he’s added so many moments to the list of Best Things That Have Ever Happened to Him as much as he has since he got his baby. That’s just another thing he’ll never quite know how to repay Donghyuck (and to some extent, well, _Jieun_ ) for.

*

“You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you, Taeyong?”

Taeyong looks awkward in Johnny’s apartment. He stands in the living room, arms dropped against his sides, and his gaze flits back and forth between Johnny and Johnny’s mom.

“Oh. I —”

Johnny’s mom cuts him off. “You must. When was the last time you had a meal cooked for you by a mother? It’s important you have those every so often. I’m cooking tonight, so you must stay.”

Johnny sits on the couch, Donghyuck on the floor in front of him, trying to scale Johnny’s legs so he can stand up. He’s not great at it yet — the whole standing up thing, his legs aren’t quite strong enough — but he’s a goddamn stubborn baby, and he tries to do it every chance he gets. Taeyong looks at Johnny and Johnny shrugs. Most of his anger has dissipated now, replaced by a small ache, and he and Taeyong still have not talked since the blow up in the car but — yeah, why wouldn’t Taeyong stay for dinner? Why would Johnny make him leave?

(This is, again, that dangerous thing Johnny does. That thing where he and Donghyuck and Taeyong play house. That thing where they are a family and the two of them, together, keep Donghyuck from lacking in anything.

God. If only he could stop being so selfish. If only he could let Taeyong slip away.)

“Yeah. I’ll stay,” Taeyong finally relents. “Do you need help with anything?”

Johnny’s mom makes them soondubu jjigae. It is even more delicious than Johnny remembers from when she made it back home. There is something so special, too, about eating it at the table in his apartment, sitting across from his mom and next to Taeyong, his baby balanced on his lap and chewing on a set of soft teething keys.

(Again: this is all a very, very dangerous line of thought.)

After they’re finished, Johnny’s mom clears her throat. In that inarguable, one-hundred-percent-confident-in-what-you-are-saying voice Johnny thinks you only develop when you become a parent, she says, “Taeyong, will you take Donghyuck into his room to play for a bit? I’m going to make my son help me with cleaning up.”

It all feels very familiar; Johnny helping his mom collect dishes off the table, putting away the leftovers, filling the sink full of soapy water for his mom and taking her left side, ready to dry all the dishes she passes him. Johnny wonders if it feels as familiar to his mom as it does for him, or if it’s all so different now. Now that he’s dad, now that he lives in his own place, now that he moved halfway across the world and seemingly started this whole life without her.

Johnny hopes she feels the familiarity he does. It makes his heart hurt, a little bit, to think maybe she doesn’t.

They get through about two bowls before Johnny’s mom says, “Johnny,” the same way she would say his name after she sat him down and was about to have a serious talk with him. Like that time he snuck in after curfew, or broke the lamp she had bought in Thailand.

“Eomma?”

She continues washing dishes like nothing’s happening. “There’s something going on here,” she hums, absolutely no doubt in her voice. “I am your mama, so I can tell,” she says _mama_ in English.

Johnny sighs. There is water soaked into the cuffs of his sleeves. When Taeyong brought Donghyuck into his room, he had closed the door, but Johnny switches to speaking fully in English just in case.

“Am I that obvious?”

She smiles, in that knowing way moms always smile. “He’s here a lot, isn’t he?” She asks a question she must already know the answer too, speaking in English as well. “I can tell from the way he acts with the baby.”

“Yeah,” Johnny admits. “He’s been helping me a lot. It’s a good thing.”

“Except?”

“Except,” there’s no point lying to her. She’s always seen right through him. She knows how he thinks, intrinsically, because she raised him. Because the way Johnny thinks is at least halfway similar to the way his mom thinks. “Sometimes I wish we were more like a real family, Eomma.”

“Oh, Johnny.”

He doesn’t realize how emotional he is until his mom says his name like that; like how she did when he was a kid, when he would present her with a scraped knee, and she would give him a band-aid and kiss his forehead. When she knew something was hurting him but there was no way for her to make it stop, not really, so all she could do was try and help soothe the pain.

“It’s hard, though,” Johnny continues. “I don’t know — I don’t know if he would ever want that. With me, with Hyuckie. We’re a package deal, y’know? And just because he likes to hang out with him doesn’t mean he’d want to help _raise_ him. Those are two different things. And it’s — I don’t want to bring someone into Hyuck’s life who will just leave, y’know? If it’s just gonna be just me and my baby forever, well, that’s okay. But I can’t pull people in and out of his life.”

Johnny’s mom purses her lips, sighs. “It seems to me he’s already in his life, honey,” she says. “You can’t protect your baby from everything, unfortunately. And you can’t always sacrifice your happiness for him either.”

Johnny knows she’s right — but he doesn’t know how to convince himself of that properly, enough for him to mold his life around the sentiment, not yet — but it cracks open a deeper, sadder part of Johnny. It makes him say, “I’m really scared I’m not gonna be a good dad.”

“You’re allowed to be scared,” Johnny’s mom puts her hand on his shoulder. It is warm and comforting. “You’re allowed to worry about messing up. You’re allowed to mess up. That’s how it works. That’s how you get better at it, Johnny.”

Johnny braces himself against the counter. His shoulders hunch. He feels like weights are tied to his ribs with individual threads, making his breathing more difficult. He’s thought these things for so long, he’s worried over them night after night, and that’s the first time he’s ever said any of it out loud. And now he’s said it to his mom, who he hasn’t seen in months, and the catharsis of that makes him feel wide awake and exhausted all at once.

“I’m sorry I’m ruining your first night here, Eomma,” Johnny switches back to Korean. He rubs at his eye with his fist and it comes away damp.

Johnny’s mom slides her arms over the broad expanse of his back, hugging him from the side. The sink is draining now, water circling and circling the drain. She presses a kiss to the curve of Johnny’s shoulder.

“Son,” she says to him quietly. “As much as I’m here to meet my grandson, I’m also here to help you. I know what it’s like, okay, to be a new parent? And you’re doing this all by yourself. So you’re not ruining anything, got it? This is why I’m here.”

Johnny nods. Then, he turns to his mom and smiles, despite his watery eyes. She pinches his cheek, just a little, the same way she would when he was a kid.

“My baby needs a bath tonight,” Johnny tells her.

“Oh,” she smiles back at him, “that’s so much fun. I’m so excited. Let me help you with that.”

*

Donghyuck takes his bottle easily after his bath, wrapped in a towel with a hood that has the face and ears of a bear, and he’s fast asleep before he’s even finished. Johnny’s mom follows Donghyuck to bed not long after, taking her temporary spot in Johnny’s thoroughly (ahem, obsessively) cleaned bedroom. Johnny’s taking Jaehyun’s bedroom, after he graciously bowed out of the apartment and over to his parents’ for the length of Johnny’s mom’s visit.

And so, the night ends like this: Johnny and Taeyong on opposite ends of the couch, still not having held a proper conversation after the argument earlier in the day.

Johnny’s anger from earlier is gone; broken off like chunks from a wall of ice, until there is nothing left but calm waters. Only, no — there is guilt, now. Ugly, teeth-baring guilt, rearing its head. It really was unfair of him to react like that, wasn’t it? He asked for Taeyong’s opinion. It wasn’t okay for Johnny to just get mad at him for giving it. But at the same time, well, Johnny wasn’t wrong. He is Donghyuck’s dad, he is the only one responsible for making decisions for him, and it is unfairly cruel for him to deny Jieun any access to the boy she brought into the world and gave to Johnny, the most precious gift he’s ever received.

Johnny starts by clearing his throat.

Taeyong starts by talking.

“I’m sorry,” he says, then seemingly reconsiders and says, “well, no. I’m not sorry for what I said — because you asked — but I’m sorry for not — being nicer about it, I guess.”

“It’s okay, Taeyong,” Johnny says, orientating his body so he can face Taeyong, leaning closer to him. “You’re right. I asked. I shouldn’t have gotten upset with you for being honest when I asked.”

They are facing each other on the couch, now; Johnny with his legs hanging over the side, Taeyong’s folded criss-cross in front of him.

Taeyong looks down at his hands, wrung together tightly. “I don’t think she’s a bad person,” he says. “And I don’t — I really don’t think you’re wrong, when you say all that stuff about her being his mom but — I don’t know. I don’t know why I think it’s a bad idea. I just do.”

“It’s okay, Taeyong.” Johnny reaches out, places one of his hands over both of Taeyong’s. Their tight knotting ceases, relaxing under the warmth and light pressure of Johnny’s palm. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m being selfish, okay?”

“Taeyong,” Johnny calls his name in a way that makes Taeyong finally lift his gaze, meet Johnny’s eyes. “Taeyong, all you do is help us. I would never think that okay? Never.”

And then, in a moment so fast Johnny barely registers it, Taeyong surges forward, removes one of his hands from underneath Johnny’s in his lap to cup the back of Johnny’s neck, and kisses him.

It feels like oblivion. It feels like being caught in the orbit of a star that’s about to go supernova; destined to collide and break apart, but unable to escape from the brightness and the heat. The kiss doesn’t last long — Taeyong is pressed up against Johnny one moment and gone the next — but it leaves a lasting impression on Johnny, leaves him reeling, leaves him missing something he’s barely even had.

“Taeyong,” Johnny repeats his name, gentle, like it’s precious.

“I lied,” Taeyong is suddenly confessing. “I know why it makes me worried. I know why I don’t like it. But it’s — it’s selfish. And none of this is about me, so I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Johnny folds his face in confusion. “What do you mean? Taeyong, you can tell me, okay? You can tell me what’s wrong.”

“No,” Taeyong shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

And, the thing is, is Johnny knows it does. He knows it matters. He knows the longer they ignore something like this — something that upsets Taeyong to make his voice tremble, for him to avoid Johnny’s eyes — the worse it gets. It’s the same way as it is with any illness; you need to treat it before it gets any better.

But then Taeyong is moving forward again, slower, and this time he puts a hand on Johnny’s knee when he leans forward to kiss him again. Johnny’s own hands move to hold Taeyong’s face, and the touch makes Taeyong gasp against Johnny’s mouth.

This can’t go very far; partly because Johnny’s mom is just in the other room, partly because Johnny doesn't know what this _is_ , or what he and Taeyong are _doing_. It feels like they’ve built a sandcastle, meticulously and lovingly, and then inevitably, the tide will come in, and it’ll get washed away. But Johnny relishes in what he can have for now: Taeyong’s soft mouth against his, Taeyong’s frame leaning into his. Taeyong melting against Johnny as Johnny touches his cheekbones, the part of his jaw that curves into this throat, and feels Taeyong’s hand creep up his thigh in return.

Johnny wishes he could trace a map of how he came to this point. What decision was it that put him on this path, that made this become his inevitability? Has he been building to this for years? Or is the moment everything turned this way something that happened closer to his present? When did the universe shift to include this — Taeyong kissing him in the dark, late night of his living room — and how does Johnny replicate it so it happens over and over?

Taeyong pulls away after what feels like seconds. Johnny has a suspicion he could spend a millenia kissing Taeyong and feel as if it passed in the blink of an eye.

“We should go to bed,” Taeyong says and Johnny tries not to get too fixated on how he said _we_. “You have a baby. You’re gonna be tired in the morning.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow, smirking. “My baby will make me tired whether I go to bed early or not.”

Taeyong playfully shoves Johnny’s shoulder. “Whatever,” he rolls his eyes, “you certainly won’t be any _more_ tired if you go to bed now.”

*

Johnny lies awake most of the night, next to Taeyong in Jaehyun’s bed. He’s too afraid to sleep, worried he’ll wake up in the morning and find all of it had been a dream, but the comforting warmth of Taeyong’s body, curled around his, pulls him into occasional unconsciousness.

Donghyuck wakes up an uncharacteristic _three times_ that night. And, of course, it is only when Johnny has slipped into peaceful, deep sleep that his baby's cries begin to pierce through the monitor and, subsequently, the veil of Johnny’s dream state.

By 8AM, Johnny is exhausted and Donghyuck is wide awake and has been for hours.

Johnny changes his baby, puts him into a cute little ensemble of matching grey pants and shirt printed with green dinosaurs, and pads out into the living room yawning. He fully intends to drop Donghyuck on the floor (he can sit up _by himself_ now and Johnny’s read a dozen parenting books and articles about spreading out Hyuck’s toys around him, so he can entertain himself, reach for things, develop his little brain and muscles) and collapse onto the couch himself, maybe order some coffee and a breakfast sandwich for delivery — but then he spots Taeyong in the kitchen, barefoot and standing at the counter in his pajamas.

Donghyuck notices him and squeals, reaching out so far for Taeyong he practically tumbles out of Johnny’s arms, and Taeyong turns and smiles at the both of them. He’s carrying a cup of coffee when he meets them out in the living room.

“I didn’t hear you get up,” Johnny says.

“Yeah, you sounded pretty busy in Hyuckie’s room with him.” Johnny’s baby seemingly has the strength of a grown man and hates getting dressed, and it’s the bane of Johnny’s existence.

“Yeah,” Johnny shakes his head. “Where’s my mom?”

“Gone for a walk. She should be back in a little bit.” Taeyong exchanges the coffee in his hands with Johnny for Donghyuck, and after Johnny takes that blessed first sip of it, Taeyong leans over and presses a soft, quick kiss to Johnny’s mouth.

When he pulls away, he’s blushing. Hyuck is gently patting the hair Taeyong has pushed behind his ears. He’s always been the most gentle with Taeyong; if this was Johnny he’d be pulling at the hair, for sure.

“Sorry,” Taeyong mumbles. “Was that weird? Should I not have —”

“No,” Johnny cuts him off. “No, it was okay.”

Taeyong blushes even harder, his whole face tinged with a soft pink hue. He bites his lip, just a little, trying to temper the smile that Johnny can see tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Johnny just stares at him, unsure of how to force himself to do anything else. Unsure what to do with the knowledge that _no_ , no it was not all a very vivid dream.

“Drink your coffee,” Taeyong finally says to him, nudging Johnny’s calf with his foot. “I’ll make Hyuckie some food.”

“He needs rice cereal this morning,” Johnny reminds him.

Taeyong rolls his eyes. “As if I don’t know that,” he smiles, despite the faux-annoyance in his tone. Then he turns to Johnny’s baby. “You hungry, Hyuckie? Want some icky rice cereal that you hate?”

Donghyuck looks at Taeyong quizzically — Johnny thinks he understands more and more words properly these days, by how much he tries to imitate the adults around him, and enough that he tries to figure new things out more and more — and then eventually decides to give up, leaning forward to plant a kiss (which is just his slobbery open mouth smashing onto its desired target) onto Taeyong’s nose.

Johnny is not surviving past breakfast at this point.

*

By the time Johnny’s mom has returned from her walk, Donghyuck has finished his rice cereal (a little easier than normal, thank god) and Johnny is finished with his first cup of coffee.

“Where did you go?” Johnny asks. He’s on the floor, laying on his belly, handing Donghyuck back the alphabet blocks he keeps tossing away. Taeyong is at a meeting for the teachers of the dance studio he works at, but he shouldn’t be too long.

Johnny’s mom has got a plastic bag and it looks full. She drops it onto the floor — close enough for Johnny to reach but not Hyuck — and smiles.

Inside the bag, Johnny finds, is non-toxic paint in primary colours and a bundle of twenty-five sheets of construction paper.

They end up dipping Donghyuck’s hands and feet in various shades of the paint. Johnny expects him to hate it — but instead he is quietly intrigued by the new sensation and colours. It’s a little tough to get a good imprint, but eventually they manage. Three pieces of construction paper, all of them barring Donghyuck’s hand and footprint, signed in sharpie with the date and his age.

“I’m taking one of these for myself,” Johnny’s mom says, selecting one from the spot they had left them to dry on Johnny’s kitchen counter. Johnny’s just trying to make sure he got all the paint out from between Hyuck’s toes. “And one is for you, of course. I still have the one you made when you were a baby at home.”

Johnny remembers it; his own painted hands pressed into a white sheet of paper, framed and hung up on the wall. He wonders if it’s still on that wall, and if maybe his mom will replace it with Hyuck’s, or hang them right next to each other.

It’s odd — to do things he is familiar with from his own childhood, only now through the lens of adulthood. An adult with his own kid. God, Johnny’s been feeling particularly old lately. He knows by most estimations he is young, both in general and also to be someone’s dad. It’s just another thing to add to the long, long list of things that make people look at him sideways in public. Whatever. He loves his baby so much. He’s gonna hang up his little foot and hand prints on the fridge and not give a fuck what the judgemental grandmother from the first floor of his apartment thinks. It doesn’t matter. No one has a baby as good as his.

“The last one?” Johnny says, delicately touching the edge of the last piece of construction paper — red hands and feet pressed against a blue background.

“You could give it Taeyong,” she says, nonchalant. Johnny almost chokes. His mom has turned to look at him, a small smile on her lips, when she says, “if you want. I’m sure he’d like it.”

*

On his mom’s third day in Korea, Johnny takes her out for dinner.

There’s a good group of them that end up going; Donghyuck, of course, and Taeyong, obviously. But Jaehyun comes too, and Mark and Ten, who Johnny’s mom has asked about too many times for Johnny to consider not inviting them.

It’s so nice; it feels like the meeting and melting together of the two families in Johnny’s life. They go to a BBQ place with good reviews online and order way too much. But it is delicious and Donghyuck is, like, so good the entire time. No crying, no whining, just letting himself be shuffled among the adults around him, rubbing his cheek against his duck. He ends up spending a lot of time demanding Mark’s attention and being elated when Mark finally gives him some. Mark, to his credit, seems less awkward about the baby thing now.

At the insistence of everyone that he needs to _unwind_ , Johnny lets Ten order him a bottle of soju.

Johnny hasn’t had anything to drink at all since he got Donghyuck; it always seemed unfair to saddle someone else with his baby so he could go have alcohol. Especially since, well, he really had no reason to do so. He used to do it for no reason all the time — but not anymore. And that was okay.

It takes convincing from the entire table to get Johnny to relent, but when he does, Johnny finds that the alcohol hits him stronger than he would have anticipated, curling warmth and a looseness throughout all of his limbs. He doesn’t get drunk, not really, but he gets tipsy enough to melt away some inhibitions. At some point, he puts his hand on Taeyong’s leg, just above his knee. Taeyong looks up at him, smiles, and Johnny squeezes his leg, gently, and leaves his hand there for the rest of the night.

*

By the time they get back to the apartment (see: Johnny, Donghyuck, Taeyong and Johnny’s mom, Jaehyun has gone back to his parents’ place) Johnny is exhausted and still half-drunk. Ten had made him finish the bottle of soju before they left, _you can’t waste it_ , he had insisted, and now Johnny’s sleepiness just means he feels the effects a little harder.

At some point, Johnny ends up on the couch next to Taeyong, his mom already in bed, with Taeyong feeding Hyuck his last bottle before bed. Johnny watches them, feeling like love might just fill him until he bursts. He can tell Hyuck is tired — his eyelids droop over and over as he drinks — but he’s not whiny like he might usually be any other night. Johnny leans his head against Taeyong’s shoulder and gently pets his baby’s hair.

Johnny tries to catalogue all the small moments that make up this larger one: the steady movement of Hyuck’s chest with his breaths, the soft, warm press of Taeyong’s leg against his on the couch. One of Taeyong’s fingers clutched in Hyuck’s fist, where it helps hold up his bottle for him, Donghyuck simply too sleepy to handle it on his own, no matter how big he is now. It soothes Johnny, a little, to know his baby still needs people — still needs _them_. Johnny wants to remember this all with crystal clarity, so on the harder days he can always remember there will be days like this. Days that feel like divine intervention in their purity, their uncomplicatedness.

There must be a moment where Johnny accidentally slips from the waking world and into a light sleep because the next thing he registers is the considerate, small movement of Taeyong’s shoulder under his head, rousing him from unconsciousness.

He does not wake fully; his brain is still fogged with the remnants of alcohol and the pressing weight of exhaustion. He registers that, in Taeyong’s arms, Donghyuck is asleep too.

“M’sorry,” Johnny mumbles, mouth slack. Taeyong is so warm. Johnny knows they have to move but he doesn’t want to. “Give me a second,” he tells Taeyong, even though he’s unsure if he’ll actually be able to make himself move anytime soon.

Taeyong laughs quietly. “Take your time,” he replies.

Maybe Johnny falls back asleep for a second. Maybe he doesn’t. “Give me a second,” he repeats, unsure of how long it’s been since the last time he said it. “One more second, then we can put our baby to bed.”

“What was that?”

“I said just give me one more second and then our baby can go to bed.”

“That’s what I thought you said,” and there is an odd tone to Taeyong’s voice when he says it.

Johnny is too tired to think about it too much.

*

Johnny wakes, in Jaehyun’s bed, and finds Taeyong is not asleep beside him.

Johnny touches the sheets carefully; they are still warm, but just barely. The room is empty of Taeyong, but he can’t have left long ago and he can’t have gone far.

Despite the fact that Donghyuck crying is decidedly not what woke Johnny up — he seemingly came awake for no particular reason, tugged from darkness by an itch he was unable to scratch, or something like that — Johnny has the sudden, impossible to ignore urge to check on his baby.

The unprompted, gut-twisting urge to make sure Donghyuck is, like, breathing bothers Johnny less often these days. But every so often it still creeps up on him, and it hooks into his brain and becomes all he can think about until he finally _does_ check on Donghyuck. Who has, for the record, one-hundred percent of the time, been perfectly fine.

The door to Donghyuck’s nursery is cracked open, just enough so that tendrils of light from his nightlight can filter through slightly. The nightlight is a smiling cartoon moon cradling a little cartoon star, who is wearing a nightcap and clutching a blanket. The first time Johnny plugged it in and showed Hyuck, he had pointed towards it and told him, _that’s you and me_.

Johnny peeks through the slit between the door and its frame, careful to not make too much noise or let in too much light, less he accidentally wakes a sleeping Donghyuck.

But Donghyuck is already awake. Not fully, from what Johnny can see, just the half-awake he will sometimes get between two long stretches of sleep. And Taeyong is with him. Donghyuck is lying in his crib, breathing slow, eyelids heavy and sucking on his thumb, and Taeyong is above him, rubbing circles into his back while he leans against the bars.

Taeyong has not turned to look at Johnny. He must not even know Johnny is here.

Johnny thinks he might be humming but it’s too quiet to properly tell. He wonders how long the two of them have been in here together. Had Donghyuck woken up and Johnny just not heard? And if he had, well, then Taeyong woke up instead? And he decided to be the one to get out of bed and take care of Hyuck? He could have just woken Johnny up. He could have deferred a responsibility that wasn’t his.

But he didn’t. He came into Donghyuck’s nursery and he’s putting him back to sleep. Johnny swallows. His heart feels too big for his chest.

He thinks about the words he hadn’t realized he was saying. He thinks about the words _our baby_ and what that means beyond the scope of their most basic definition. He thinks about those words, over and over like a record that skips, and hopes that Taeyong never makes him take them back.


	5. we drift in & out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please be mindful of the rating increase! this chapter is a little spicy at the beginning!
> 
> thank you to dear reader @375PERCENT on twitter for inspiring the family photo shoot that takes place in this chapter. only one more to go after this. just as a precaution, before you read on, i should let you know: i'm sorry.

The sun coming through the blinds creates a cage out of the rays across Johnny’s room, bars made out of light and shadow. The morning is quiet — not even Donghyuck has stirred out of slumber yet, and Jaehyun is either still asleep or already gone for the day.

Next to Johnny, in his bed, Taeyong sleeps with his face pressed into the pillow and his hair sticking up at all angles. Johnny watches him. It feels intimate, silently watching someone you care about sleep in a space. It is a largely insignificant moment that has a tendency to burn bright and loud in memory.

The bed is warm and the sheets are rumpled, pooled around their waists to expose both Johnny and Taeyong’s equally bare chests. There is a warm-toned, red coloured mark just above Taeyong’s left pectoral. Johnny touches Taeyong’s face, the pressure light but meticulous in its exploration. He runs his thumb along the curve of Taeyong’s brow, down the slope of his nose, pauses along Taeyong’s cupid’s bow to trace the shape of his top lip, then continues to his bottom. Taeyong sighs in his sleep, and it fans breath across Johnny’s skin, raising goosebumps in its path.

Johnny isn’t sure what they’re doing here — not in this exact moment, specifically, but beyond it. In their everyday lives, days that they have somehow managed to find extra hours in, more time to spend together that they didn’t even know they had. They haven’t discussed it; what it means now that Taeyong and Johnny can kiss each other, that sometimes they hold each other when they share Johnny’s bed, that some nights Taeyong will kiss down Johnny’s chest, and Johnny will thread his fingers into Taeyong’s hair, and they will fall into and against each other in more ways than one.

Maybe they should talk about it.

But maybe, Johnny thinks, this is just the same thing they’ve been doing all along. Just _more_ of it. Like, when you find a more effective way to complete a task you’ve done for years. It’s not different, not really, they are are simply different means to the same ends.

Johnny’s thumb falls from Taeyong’s mouth. He tucks his hand against Taeyong’s jaw, following the curve of it into his throat. His skin is soft and warm. He is so intrinsically _alive_ and he _exists_ in Johnny’s life and that alone is a gift. The fact that Johnny can lean forward and press a kiss to the corner of Taeyong’s mouth feels too good to be true.

The pressure of Johnny’s lips rouses Taeyong gently from sleep. His eyes flutter open, moving shadows of his eyelashes across his cheekbones. Johnny watches Taeyong come awake, hand still cupping Taeyong’s jaw, face still close to his. When Taeyong’s brain catches up with the moment, he lifts his eyes to look into Johnny’s, and then he smiles.

“Hi,” Johnny mumbles, moves his hand so his fingers rest just below Taeyong’s ear and his thumb can brush back and forth across Taeyong’s cheek.

“Hey,” Taeyong replies. He shuffles closer to Johnny on the bed, close enough so their chests are pressed together, close enough for their legs to tangle, close enough for Taeyong to wrap his arms all the way around Johnny’s back. He nuzzles against Johnny, briefly, before he’s lifting his head to kiss him properly.

They stay like that for a while; kissing slowly in the warmth of Johnny’s sheets and early morning. Their skin sticks with the beginnings of sweat but neither of them pay it much attention. It’s funny how quickly they slipped into this, into a reality where this was the most comfortable thing Johnny could find himself doing any morning. But, again, it doesn’t quite feel like anything new. Just an extension on a foundation that has already been tested and found solid.

At some point, Johnny pins Taeyong against the bed by the sharp bones of his hips. He puts his mouth over the lingering mark on Taeyong’s chest, and Taeyong hisses when Johnny presses his teeth into it. His hand dips between Taeyong thighs with purpose.

“Still sore,” Taeyong groans out, but he arches into Johnny, pressing his hips upwards.

Johnny kisses him, meticulous in the same way he traced the outlines of Taeyong’s face while he slept. Meticulous in the same way he’s memorizing the shape of every one of Taeyong's teeth, memorizing the way his mouth responds to Johnny’s. “Okay, baby,” he replies, then kisses a trail down Taeyong’s chest.

Taeyong’s cock is a gentle weight against Johnny’s tongue. He breathes through his nose slowly and keeps his eyes trained upwards, on Taeyong’s face, while he goes down on him. Taeyong does not meet Johnny’s eyes, trained without wavering on Taeyong’s face but it’s okay. It’s okay, because instead of that, Taeyong has his eyes screwed shut tightly, hands fisted into the sheets and his chest moving shallowly with his breaths, with the small, high-pitched whines Taeyong keeps letting fall from his open mouth.

“Oh, oh, _oh_ ,” Taeyong stutters out, vowel dragging on the final noise. He does this thing when he’s about to come where his hands will flutter, a little bit, and a lot of the times he’ll end up pressing one against his face, as if to ground himself in the moment. He does it this time, too, as Johnny finishes him off and it’s so fucking _cute_ to Johnny and he can’t believe he’s made Taeyong come enough times to pick up on those kind of habits.

Johnny scales the pale, open plain of Taeyong’s torso to kiss him again, a little messier this time. Taeyong’s hands end up in Johnny’s hair, tugging and tugging, while Johnny ruts a few times against Taeyong’s hip, before he’s wrapping a hand around himself and finishing onto Taeyong’s lower stomach.

They take their time cleaning up, spending a few more minutes kissing wet and languid, and then a few more minutes lying on their backs, staring up at the ceiling and catching their breaths. Eventually, Taeyong rolls out of bed.

“Gonna go shower,” he says, then he reaches back across the bed to thread his fingers with Johnny’s. “You should come too,” he tugs on Johnny’s hand, smirking.

And Johnny is just about to say yes, he really wants to, but this is, of course, when the baby monitor lights up red with Donghyuck’s voice. He’s not crying — he doesn’t really cry in the mornings anymore, not if he’s slept well — just babbling aloud to himself, probably because he’s figured out that that is a good way to get someone to come and pay attention to him.

“Or not,” Taeyong laments. He laughs when Johnny groans. “It’s okay,” he bends down to kiss Johnny, closed-mouth and quick. “Guess this morning was pretty nice on its own.”

Taeyong winks and, yeah, Johnny can’t really disagree.

*

Johnny’s cursor hovers over the body of an open e-mail, mocking Johnny with its so-white-it-hurts blankness.

It has Jieun’s e-mail address plugged into the _Recipients_ slot and there are four attachments, all photos of Donghyuck from the past few months. But beyond that? Nothing. Blank body of text and Johnny’s mind totally blanked of things to fill it with.

He’s pretty sure he’s made his decision on — well, all of it. The letting Jieun see Donghyuck in the future, the relationship he might be comfortable letting her have with his son. He’s thankful she’s allowing him to make the decision for himself, to some degree, but maybe it would have been easier if she had forced Johnny to just fold for her, bend to her whims. But she was that nice about it; she had considered Johnny’s boundaries, she had acknowledged that, at the end of the day, she had relinquished the right to make any decisions for Donghyuck moving forward. And all of that was nice, and good, but it would also all contribute to the guilt Johnny would feel if he told her no.

And that’s the other thing: he doesn’t think he should say no. He doesn’t think there’s any reason too. And any time Johnny tries to ask Taeyong why he seemingly has such an issue with it, Taeyong immediately closes off, goes quiet and insists it doesn’t matter.

(“It matters to me,” Johnny always tells him. “Your opinion always matters to me.”

And Taeyong will always get this soft look, but he’ll always say, “it’s okay. I know it does, but it’s okay.”

Johnny continues to have the sneaking suspicion it’s not.)

So, Johnny starts his email with the only real thing he can think to write — _Hi, Jieun_ — and hopes he’s making the right decision.

*

_Hi Jieun,_

_I hope this email finds you well. I appreciate you reaching out the way you did. I think care like that is very important in this situation._

_I’ve attached a few photos of Donghyuck from the last few months. He’s grown a lot. He’s seven months old now and I think he’ll start crawling soon. He hates rice cereal but he loves bananas and sweet potatoes. His favourite stuffed toy is a duck his Uncle Jaehyun bought him. He loves meeting new people. He’s a really happy baby and I’m thankful I get to be his dad every single day._

_I think, whenever you’re ready, it would be fine for you to meet him and spend some time with him. We can discuss this more whenever you’re up for it._

_Thanks for everything,  
Johnny._

*

Jieun does not respond to the first email.

Johnny does not take it personally. A few weeks later, he sends her a second one, with more pictures. _He crawls now_ , he writes to her. _And he’s trying to stand up. His favourite game is to drop something and make me pick it up for him, over and over again_. Jieun, still, does not reply. Just after Donghyuck turns eight months, Johnny sends a third email. More pictures, more updates. _Hyuckie really likes music these days. He dances and screams along with it. I think he thinks he’s singing. His favourite movie is The Lion King and sometimes the only way we can get him to sit still is to put it on._ Johnny attaches a video of Taeyong and Donghyuck flitting about the living room, dancing and singing to _I Just Can’t Wait To Be King_.

Time passes. Jieun does not respond.

It’s okay. She doesn’t have to. Maybe she will, one day soon, but she doesn’t have to.

*

Before Donghyuck, Johnny would have told anyone who asked that his full-time job was freelance producing, with occasional time served as a DJ, and as far as hobbies went, sometimes photography. Now, he would say his full-time job is raising his son, and that sometimes he finds time to put food on the table by freelancing. The photography has mostly fallen by the wayside.

If you could even call it photography. Mostly, Johnny had taken pictures of his friends when they would all congregate together for drinks, or for dinner, or the one time Taeyong and Ten had meticulously planned a picnic in the park for Jungwoo’s birthday because they could not, for the life of them, figure out what Jungwoo could have possibly want as a gift. It was never anything serious — Johnny thought, maybe at some point, it could have been, but he had never really explored it. Decided he should probably just take it one pipe dream at a time. Now he doesn’t really have the time to have any dreams, because it’s okay, because Johnny has Donghyuck and one day Donghyuck will have dreams and then Johnny can help him with those.

All this to say: Johnny’s camera has sat on the top shelf in his closet for months at this point. But it’s his mom’s birthday soon, and when Johnny had lamented to Taeyong that he had no idea what to send her, Taeyong had suggested, “you should take family photos.”

“I take pictures of my kid all the time.”

“I mean with the both of you,” Taeyong explains. “Like, nice pictures. With your good camera. Have you ever been to one of those photo studios with the ugly backdrops? Like that. But better, obviously.”

So they do. Johnny goes out and buys matching burnt orange sweaters for him and Hyuck. The fact that they match kind of makes Johnny feel _absolutely_ ridiculous — but then, once they’re both dressed, Johnny holds his baby and looks at them both in the mirror and it’s kind of, like, the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

Taeyong says as much when he sees them for the first time. “My heart,” he says, pressing his palm against his chest dramatically. “You guys are so cute. I can’t stand it.”

Johnny kisses him, because Taeyong is cute too. Donghyuck is having none of it, however, and immediately inserts his head between Johnny and Taeyong to force them apart.

“Come on, kid,” Johnny sighs half-heartedly. “Give me a break. For once.”

Taeyong laughs quietly, ruffling Donghyuck’s hair. This forces Johnny to dutifully try and fix it — because they’re about to take _pictures_ — and Johnny would be more annoyed by it if Taeyong hadn’t immediately found a way to kiss the corner of his mouth before Hyuck could notice.

*

They go to the same park Johnny had taken Donghyuck to when Taeyong had been preparing for his half-birthday party. The weather is nicer than it had been in December, but it’s still cool, so Johnny puts his baby in a black beanie and a navy blue jacket, open over his sweater. They lay a blanket on the ground and plop Hyuck on it with a few toys, and Johnny works on setting up his camera.

“You’ll only have to press the button,” Johnny says, peering through the viewfinder. “I’m serious. Don’t change anything. Just press the button.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes. “I think I can handle pressing a button,” he replies, elbowing Johnny in the side as punctuation.

They take a few dozen pictures. Donghyuck is in a good mood for all of them, thank god. In some he’s just peering at the camera with his big brown eyes, in others Taeyong actually manages to get him to smile before he presses the shutter. Johnny really does feel kind of ridiculous. But this is, like, what being a parent is all about. And he knows his mom will love the photos, so it’s worth it.

Donghyuck is sitting in Johnny’s lap, and despite how he’s been very good up until this point, now all he wants to do is keep reaching out towards Taeyong. It has kind of aborted any photo taking for the moment, because Hyuck won’t sit still — until Johnny has a thought.

“Taeyong,” he calls out to him. “If you flick that button on the side, it’ll put the camera on a ten second timer.”

“Okay,” Taeyong looks confused. “You’re telling me this because? You want me to know how good your camera is.”

“No, I —,” Johnny smiles, shakes his head. Donghyuck keeps reaching towards Taeyong, and this time Johnny let’s him go. He deposits him onto the ground and lets Donghyuck crawl, uncoordinated and literally so adorable, Johnny has the most adorable baby on the planet, all the way over to Taeyong. “Grab the baby and get into the picture, Taeyong. That’s what I’m saying.”

 _You’re family_ , Johnny thinks. _You’re family so get in the picture with us_.

And there was a time where that thought would have made Johnny feel guilty. Would have made Johnny feel like he was forcing Taeyong into a role he didn’t ask for. But now — now that they exist in this universe where Taeyong makes Johnny coffee in the morning sometimes, and they share the same bed not because they have to but because they want to, and they kiss — now Johnny doesn’t feel guilty. So what if they lacked any sort of established vocabulary for all of this? Sometimes family is like that. Sometimes family is bigger and includes more people than you could ever anticipate.

That’s the best thing about it.

(The photos they take with Taeyong are nice. Johnny gets them developed a few days later and sorts through them — and all the pictures with Taeyong are his favourites. There’s something about the colours, the expression on all three of their faces. There’s something to the matching flush on Taeyong and Donghyuck’s cheeks from the wind. There’s something to the way Taeyong’s hand is curled around Johnny’s ankle, with Donghyuck sitting between them.

Johnny buys a frame and puts one of the photos of just him and Donghyuck inside of it for his mom. When he mails it, he mails her a copy of one of the photos that includes Taeyong.

Johnny keeps a few photos for himself too. His favourite is the last one they took. The camera wasn’t even on the tripod anymore — it’s just Johnny’s arm stretched out to capture them all, all of them squished into a tight frame, and Donghyuck’s hair is a mess and he had just been crying but it’s okay. It’s okay because he’s looking at the camera with his wide eyes and Taeyong’s chin is perched on Donghyuck’s head and he’s looking at the camera and smiling. And Johnny — well, Johnny’s looking at Taeyong. He’s looking at Taeyong and smiling.

Of all the photos Johnny keeps for himself, he thinks, that’s the one he’ll need to find a frame for..)

*

Maybe everything still feels the same between Johnny and Taeyong because they just keep doing the same things.

Case in point: going to the grocery store.

They’ve made some minor adjustments to the whole process, to be fair. Donghyuck hates being in the cart, it turns out (this is something that took way, way too long for Johnny and Taeyong to figure out, especially when Hyuck kept giving them all the clues), so Johnny’s invested in a baby carrier and just straps his baby to his chest these days. The first time he had put it on he had asked Taeyong, “how do I look?”

And Taeyong had responded, “like a total dork. But it’s cute.”

They buy less formula these days and more baby puree foods. Stuff like suspiciously bright orange mashed carrots and disgustingly green-coloured mashed peas. Donghyuck likes fruits a lot, too, and while his favourites are bananas, he also likes mangos and kiwis. He _does not_ like berries, even a little bit, which Johnny had to learn the hard way. That shirt was never going to recover from the blueberry stains on it.

“I don’t know where he gets it from — being so picky,” Johnny says to Taeyong, gazing carefully over the display of jars and jars of baby food. Donghyuck coos from his spot against Johnny’s chest, jiggling his set of primary-coloured teething keys.

“He’s not picky,” Taeyong replies. “He’s just got refined taste.”

“Oh. If that’s the case then he most definitely gets that from me,” and when Taeyong rolls his eyes at Johnny’s response, Johnny pushes the hair away from his forehead to plant a small kiss against it. Then he kisses the crown of Donghyuck’s head, too, just so his baby doesn’t feel left out.

Johnny also buys more things to keep in his apartment _for_ Taeyong. He buys the brand of ramyeon Taeyong likes, he keeps Taeyong’s favourite ice cream in the freezer. There’s sweets in the cupboards Johnny never touches unless Taeyong offers one to him. There’s the juice Taeyong likes in Johnny’s refrigerator.

(It is an almost disgustingly wholesome picture of domesticity some mornings: Taeyong and Johnny sitting on the couch, Donghyuck sat up and playing between them. Johnny drinking the coffee Taeyong made him, Taeyong drinking the juice Johnny bought him.)

“Ten and Kun want to get lunch,” Taeyong says, typing a couple of things on his phone while Johnny dutifully drops about a dozen jars of carefully chosen baby food into the cart. “Does that work for us?”

 _Us_ , Johnny never thought he could love that word so much. “Yeah, that works.” He turns to Donghyuck. “Get excited, kid, your Uncle Ten is still trying to win your affections over your Uncle Mark. I’m sure he got you something.”

Hyuck makes a fart noise with his mouth. Then he drops his teething keys onto the floor, just to watch and clap with glee while Johnny picks them up.

*

Turns out Johnny was correct: Ten has, indeed, brought a gift for Hyuck with him to lunch.

“We’re running out of room for stuff, Ten,” Johnny laments when Ten hands over the set of toy trains.

“He’s literally the only baby any of us know, Johnny,” Ten retorts. “I don’t know what you expected. Get a bigger apartment. I’m sure Jaehyun will appreciate the opportunity to live his bachelor lifestyle once again.”

“Last he told me, girls were really into the whole baby thing,” Kun pipes up from beside Ten. “He said Hyuck’s the best wingman he’s ever had.” Ten elbows his boyfriend in the stomach for disproving his point. Kun doesn’t even flinch.

They’re at a noodle place for lunch. It’s delicious, and it’s especially amusing to watch Donghyuck try and coordinate how to eat the noodles Johnny sets down in front of him. He doesn’t give him very many — solid food is still more a having-it-to-get-used-to-it thing for Hyuck rather than something he actually _needs_ — but the few noodles Johnny does give Hyuck he likes, and they keep him entertained.

For all the floundering Johnny and Taeyong’s friends watched them execute around each other, they don’t really ask about Them, the word used in a way that designates Johnny and Taeyong as a single unit. Ten gets this knowing look when Taeyong passes Johnny some extra pieces of meat from his own bowl of noodles, a look that makes Johnny colour a little, but nothing beyond that.

Johnny is thankful for it, mostly. But, on the other hand, maybe trying to explain it out loud would help him set the parameters of it. He doesn’t particularly like being vague, and that’s what his and Taeyong’s relationship is: vague.

But sometimes things just aren’t that simple to grasp. Some things aren’t just that easy to look at and understand completely. And sometimes things are worse when you try to put them in a box, the way a butterfly's wings might droop if trapped.

Sometimes you spend so long building a house of cards that you’re afraid to even breathe and knock it down.

Johnny is thinking all of this, watching his son dangle a noodle above himself, desperate for it to find his mouth, when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

Johnny expects a text — maybe from Jaehyun or Mark. Or maybe an email about a potential client, or that invoice he’s been asking about all last week. But it is none of those things. Instead, it is an email from Jieun.

Johnny stares at it. It says it’s from _Lee Jieun_ , the subject line reads _Thank you_. There’s a small preview of the first few lines of the body of the email but Johnny avoids looking at it. Johnny had kept emailing her, so he had to have expected that she would respond eventually but — Johnny doesn’t know. Maybe he was hoping she wouldn’t. Maybe he was hoping that this particular piece of his life would remain simple.

Taeyong clears his throat. Johnny snaps out of his reverie, locks his phone, and when he turns to face Taeyong he catches Taeyong eye’s moving from Johnny’s phone to his own eyes. Taeyong looks — not upset, just off-kilter. From their side of the table, Ten and Kun are silent. Donghyuck bangs his hands against the table, squawking for more noodles.

Johnny seizes his opportunity. “Hungry, Hyuckie?” He digs around in Hyuck’s diaper bag for his cereal puffs, then spreads about a dozen out in front of Donghyuck.

Donghyuck claps his hands with excitement. Johnny offers Ten and Kun a weak smile.

Taeyong is quiet.

*

Taeyong is quiet all the way home, too.

Donghyuck falls asleep in his car seat, and it’s only after Johnny has laid him down for a proper nap in his crib, and come back out into the living room, that Taeyong finally speaks.

“Was that email you got during lunch important?” Taeyong asks. And Johnny knows it’s a trap, he does, but he falls right into anyways.

“No,” he says, not exactly a lie but not the truth either.

Taeyong lets a few beats pass. He and Johnny stand on opposite sides of the living room. Then, Taeyong says, “I know the email was from Jieun.”

And Johnny means to recover quickly, he really does. He is confident in his decision to welcome Jieun into Donghyuck’s life. But, at the end of the day, that doesn’t change how Taeyong feels. That doesn’t change the fact that Johnny has no desire to hurt Taeyong’s feelings. That doesn’t change the fact that those two thoughts — that Jieun deserves to have some contact with Donghyuck and that Johnny doesn’t want to hurt Taeyong’s feelings — contradict each other, in a way that Johnny finds more frustrating than anything else.

Sometimes the things we want just aren’t the things that are meant to happen, though.

“You lied to me,” Taeyong accuses.

“Taeyong. That’s not fair,” Johnny shakes his head. “I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you.”

“Oh, sorry,” Taeyong throws his hands up in indignation. “You lied by omission. My bad. I don’t see how it’s really any different.”

“We've had this discussion over and over,” Johnny retorts. “And you never tell me what the problem is! What’s your problem with it, Taeyong?”

“I’m afraid you won’t need me anymore, okay?” Taeyong is suddenly erupting, voice spread thin like it always gets when he’s upset. “I’m afraid of how easy it would be for you to just — to just end up with her, and be a family, and for you to just leave me behind.”

“Taeyong,” Johnny reaches out for him, but Taeyong steps back, pulling himself out of Johnny’s orbit. “I wouldn’t ever —”

“Look me in the eye,” Taeyong cuts him off. “Look me in the eye and tell me that if Jieun wanted to be a family that you wouldn’t even consider it.”

And god, Johnny wishes he could. He wants to tell Taeyong what he wants to hear so bad. Tell him Johnny would always choose him — because he would. Johnny would always choose Taeyong, he wants to be with Taeyong. But Johnny no longer lives in a world where he only considers himself when making decisions. He is someone’s dad, and Donghyuk will always inherently come before Johnny on Johnny’s own list of needs, and Johnny can’t help it. So he can’t say it, he can’t say he wouldn’t even consider it. She’s Donghyuck’s _mom_.

“You can’t, can you?” And saying the words seemingly pushes Taeyong off the edge of crying and right into the throes of it, tears brimming quickly in his eyes and falling down his cheeks.

“Taeyong,” Johnny repeats his name uselessly, unsure of how to say anything that matters. Anything that would make this better.

“I get it,” Taeyong rubs furiously at his eyes, spreading wetness all over his face, making his eyes red. “The worst part is that I get it. But it still makes me so fucking sad.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Johnny replies, because he doesn’t. “I’m sorry. Please stop crying, Taeyong.”

“I just,” Taeyong breathes in hard, trying to fill his lungs fuller than they’ll let him. “I need a minute. By myself. One second,” and he retreats into Johnny’s bathroom.

He’s in there for a while. Johnny doesn’t hear much noise coming through the door — but maybe that’s because he keeps his distance from it. He won’t invade a space Taeyong has clearly asked him to stay out of.

Johnny wishes he could find the words to make Taeyong understand. He would never _choose_ anyone instead of Taeyong. But it’s not about Johnny’s choices. He doesn’t think Taeyong would ever understand; he’s not Hyuck’s dad, and it’s hard to put into words the all-consuming, intrinsic need for Johnny to always do right by Donghyuck, before he does right by anyone else.

Eventually, Taeyong emerges from the bathroom. His eyes are rimmed red, and red also stains his mouth and splotches his cheeks. Johnny wants to hug him, or kiss him, but he doesn’t think Taeyong would welcome it. Johnny has half a mind to think Taeyong will leave, go home, let Johnny feel his absence in punishment.

But he doesn’t. He stays.

Johnny considers, for a moment, that maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Taeyong does know what it’s like to put Donghyuck’s happiness above his own.

But then Donghyuck is crying, and the thought leaves Johnny’s head.

*

In the infinite jest of the universe: things get worse before they get any better.

Johnny is in the kitchen, watching the water circle the drain after finishing the dishes. Taeyong is in the living room with Donghyuck; they’re watching _The Lion King_. Donghyuck is holding himself up on his unsteady legs by grabbing onto the couch. He’s been doing that a lot lately. It makes Johnny excited and nervous and sad all at the same time. His baby is gonna start to stand up soon, and then walk, and then eventually he won’t be a baby at all.

Johnny keeps thinking he should read Jieun’s email but — he’s not sure if he wants to open the stitches on that wound just yet. This all feels supremely unfair, Johnny caught between a rock and a hard place, but that’s life, isn’t it? Hardly ever fair.

Johnny is really, really thinking about it; about pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking the email but, then, all of a sudden, something loud happens in the living room.

There’s the distinct thud of a small body hitting something twice — Donghyuck and the floor, Johnny suspects, but he’s not sure what the second thud is. It would be enough to put Johnny on the edge, just those noises, but what makes it even worse is the cry Donghyuck lets out in the aftermath of them. It’s not his usual cry when he falls — short and whiny, half only because he startled himself — it is much more visceral, much more upset. Donghyuck sounds _hurt_ and it seizes Johnny’s heart up so tight he’s afraid it might give out.

He’s tearing out of the kitchen and into the living room faster than Taeyong can call his name.

“Johnny!” Taeyong is shouting. His voice is as panicked as his expression.

Donghyuck is lying on his back on the floor. He’s crying so hard he has to stop and hyperventilate every few seconds, and it pulls these wretched little sobs from Donghyuck that break Johnny’s heart over and over. Worse still, there’s blood trailing down Hyuck’s face. Blood from a gash across his forehead, maybe an inch long, and not very thick, but deep. The red against Donghyuck’s pale, soft skin is horrifying. It’s the worst thing Johnny’s ever seen; worse than any oversaturated gore of any horror movie, worse than any home video of an accident he’s stumbled across on the internet. Because it’s his baby and he’s hurt and Johnny didn’t keep him safe.

He scoops Donghyuck up into his arms, not caring about the blood that smears on his shirt sleeve. Donghyuck still cries, big fat tears rolling down his cheeks, mixing with blood.

“Taeyong,” Johnny is frantic. “Taeyong, I thought you were watching him. What happened? You were supposed to be watching him.”

“I was!” Taeyong retorts. “I looked away — Johnny, I turned my head for just a second and he — he fell and he must have hit his head and — I’m sorry, Johnny. I’m sorry.”

If Johnny had his wits about him, maybe he would have realized this was it; this was the foundation starting to buckle under the weight. This was the splitting apart of the crack that was going to take this whole thing tumbling down. But Johnny doesn’t realize, because his baby is still crying, still bleeding, and his whole world has narrowed to the single task of making all of this stop.

Johnny does his best to examine Donghyuck’s cut. It’s hard, because Donghyuck keeps crying and wrenching his head away from Johnny, but Johnny gets a good enough look to know he’s severely underqualified to deal with this.

“I think he needs stitches,” Johnny says, already fumbling for his wallet and keys. “We need to take him to the emergency room.”

Taeyong is still repeating, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ and the way it mixes with the sounds of Donghyuck crying fills Johnny with a dread he can’t explain and can barely ignore. He wishes he could step back from this situation, let someone else handle it, come back to it once it’s over. But he’s a dad now, and that’s not how it works. Dads fix things. Dads make things better.

“Taeyong,” Johnny snaps him out of his own thoughts. “Can you please grab Donghyuck’s diaper bag. We need to leave right now.”

Taeyong nods, still recovering from the shock and upset of the situation as he does. If Johnny had his wits about him, maybe he’d notice the wetness in Taeyong’s eyes. Maybe he’d notice and file it away for later. Something for him to ask Taeyong about when things are calmer, something that would turn Johnny’s demeanor softer in those moments. If Johnny would notice, maybe he’d handle this all with kid gloves.

But he doesn’t. So he won’t.

*

Johnny has never liked hospitals. He likes them even less when the reason he’s there is his son.

When they had first arrived, the emergency room was teeming with other patients. Some reading newspapers, some on their phone. A little girl, maybe a few years older than Donghyuck, was asleep in her father’s lap. They had been passed briefly from nurse to nurse, until finally, one of them bandaged up Hyuck’s forehead to stop the bleeding, and sat them back down in the emergency room to wait for a doctor.

Donghyuck’s not crying anymore. He keeps sniffling, his face buried into Johnny’s neck, clinging to his dad like he’s afraid of the world all of a sudden. Taeyong brought his duck, and Johnny is grateful for it, grateful for the small comfort it brings Hyuck to rub his cheek against it. There is dried blood across Hyuck’s face still, and there is blood dried into Johnny’s t-shirt.

Johnny just wants to go home. He’s so tired. He wants his baby to be fixed and to go home and to fall asleep with his baby in bed next to him.

Taeyong threads his fingers through Johnny’s and Johnny lets him. They don't talk much. Johnny thinks the shock is wearing off and, slowly, they’re each processing this night. They’re each letting it catch up with them.

Johnny thinks of the way he said _you were supposed to be watching him_ and feels guilt rise in his throat like bile.

It’s a nurse they haven’t seen before who calls them from the waiting room, an hour and half after they arrived. Johnny almost doesn’t want to answer her call, aware his baby is about to get some stitches, and how awful that will be for the both of them. But they’ve got to fix him. Johnny needs to make sure his baby knows he’ll always take care of him. So when the nurse calls, he answers.

“You’re the father?” The nurse asks, gesturing at Donghyuck and the ways he’s curled into Johnny’s arms.

Johnny nods. “Yeah. It’s just me. He just doesn’t have my surname.” They haven’t changed it yet, a lack of time and resources.

The nurse's eyes narrow, just a bit, in the way Johnny is used being the subject of whenever someone finds out he’s a single dad. But she ushers Johnny along. When Taeyong moves to follow, she stops him.

“And you are?” She asks him.

Taeyong looks taken aback. “I —,” Taeyong starts, then falters. “He’s my friend.”

“It’s family only, sir,” she says it with no room for argument.

“Oh,” Taeyong deflates. “Okay,” he acquiesces. He looks at Johnny, for just a moment, before he turns away. He falls into a waiting room chair like a puppet with its strings cut. He rubs a hand over his face.

Johnny feels like he should say something. That he should insist that he should come, because _he is family_. But Johnny is so tired, and he just wants Donghyuck to be okay. He wants to bring his baby home. So he doesn’t say anything.

He turns to follow the nurse and her voice sounds very, very far away as she says to him, “we’ll take good care of your son. Don’t worry.”

*

Johnny feels numb the entire drive home. He wishes the safest place for his baby wasn’t buckled into his car seat. He wishes he could hold him, maybe forever, and never let anything happen to him ever again. The bandage they’ve affixed over Donghyuck’s stitches looks harsh against Donghyuck’s warm, soft skin.

“It’ll scar,” the doctor had told Johnny and Johnny tried very, very hard to not let that get to him.

It feels good to lay Donghyuck down in Johnny’s bed when they get home. There’s still a mess from their hurried exit but Johnny ignores it, ignores the evidence of chaos. Tonight’s already been too much. He’s beside himself, and he will appreciate the soft angelic look of his child in sleep, with the cut in his forehead mended and the dried blood wiped away from his face. Johnny wants to crawl in bed next to Donghyuck and sleep for as long as he can. He doesn’t, because Taeyong is still here, dutifully tidying things in the living room, but he wishes he could.

Johnny pads out into the living room slow, limbs heavy, and when he emerges from the hallway Taeyong notices him immediately.

“Johnny,” he says, hushed. The way you might say a secret into someone’s ear, between cupped palms. “Johnny, I’m sorry.”

“It’s,” _okay_ , Johnny means to say, but his tongue feels swollen and useless in his mouth. His eyelids are so heavy. He is so tired.

“She was right, y’know.”

“What?”

“The nurse,” Taeyong sighs. He’s holding both his arms, crossed in front of his chest, like he’s cold. He’s shrunk in on himself. He looks small. His eyes are still red. “I thought about it over and over while I was waiting for you and she — she was right to not let me in there. I’m not family.”

“Taeyong,” Johnny’s palms feel clammy. Something deep in his chest feels very, very cold. “What are you saying?”

“You’re right, y’know, when you say those things,” Taeyong continues. “You’re right about Jieun, you’re right when you say that you’re his dad and you make the decisions. Because you are. You’re Donghyuck’s dad, Johnny, and I’m — I’m nothing.”

And this, this is the whole foundation breaking apart. This is a chasm erupting between Johnny and Taeyong. This is the consequence of Johnny’s actions.

This hurts, so bad, and Johnny doesn’t know what to do about it.

“I don’t know why I thought,” Taeyong hiccups. He’s crying. He keeps crying today. Johnny just keeps making him cry, over and over. “I don’t know why I thought if we kept pretending — if we kept _acting_ like we were a family — maybe we would just become one. But that’s not how it works, is it? I can’t have it no matter how hard I try.”

“Taeyong, I —”

Taeyong cuts Johnny off. “I’m going to go, I think, Johnny. I’m going to go, and the next time you need help with your baby, maybe you should call Ten.”

There is an endless stream of words that gets caught in Johnny’s throat: you are family. We can be a family. I want to be your family. I’m sorry I didn’t say something. I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder. I’m sorry I made you cry over and over today. I’ll be more honest. We’ll figure this out. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought you into this. I’m sorry I promised you things I couldn’t deliver. I’m sorry I made you love my baby so much it’s breaking your heart. I’m sorry I asked. I’m sorry for everything.

Not a single one of them makes their way past Johnny’s lips. The only thing that does is a long, agonized, wavering breath -- the kind that rips itself from you the same way you’d pull a knife out of your chest -- that leaves Johnny a moment after Taeyong does, closing the door behind him.


	6. share the same space (for a minute or two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's here. 
> 
> it's done and it's here and i'm so excited to post this. i'm gonna get more mushy about this in the note at the end so for now i'll just let y'all get to it.

The morning after, Johnny wakes up to a bed void of Taeyong.

It’s such a stark contrast from the mornings Johnny has become accustomed to and he feels the absence too harshly. It’s like this weight made of the empty space crushing against his ribcage.

Donghyuck is awake beside him, halfway sat up and halfway leaned against Johnny’s chest, gently using his uncoordinated hands to push Johnny’s sleep-mussed hair out of his eyes. Johnny looks at his son; the red tint to his nose and cheeks, the tuft of his unkempt hair. The bandage affixed to his forehead, the slight bruising that stretches out past the edges of it. His big round eyes, which Donghyuck can’t have inherited from Taeyong, because that’s not how it _works_ but they remind Johnny so much of Taeyong he feels like it adds more weight to the pressing on his chest.

“Oh, Hyuckie,” Johnny curls his arms around his baby and pulls him close, hugs him tight to his chest and tries not to let emotion overtake him. “Baby, I’m so glad I have you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Donghyuck answers in little babbles. Whereas most days they are loud, today they are softer.

“It’s just me and you now, I guess,” Johnny sighs. He presses his face into the soft skin of his baby’s neck. “For now. I hope. I don’t know, baby. But it’s okay. I got you and you got me.”

*

Johnny finally reads the email from Jieun, somewhere in the haze of time between morning and afternoon. The hours feel like they slip away from him, shortening days that already didn’t have enough space for all the things he’d like to do. It’s like when Taeyong left, he took all those extra hours he and Johnny found, to spend together, away with him.

_Johnny,_ it says.

_I’m sorry I didn’t reply sooner. I appreciate everything you’ve sent so far. Really. All the pictures and videos are so cute. Donghyuck looks like he’s growing up with a lot of love around him. I can’t believe how lucky he got to have you be his dad._

_If it’s something you’d be open to, I think I’m ready to see him again. We can take it at whatever pace you’d like. Here’s my phone number_ and instead of signing the email with her name, Jieun has signed it with her cellphone number.

Johnny thinks back to the photos he sent Jieun: Donghyuck, covered in rice cereal after a particularly disastrous feeding time. Donghyuck, asleep against Johnny’s chest, mostly limp except for where his fist curled into the fabric of Johnny’s shirt to grip it. Donghyuck, smiling with nothing but his top two teeth and one bottom tooth. Donghyuck, wrapped up in his bear towel after bath time, hair brushed against his head in a way that Taeyong had said made him look especially like Johnny. Taeyong had been holding Donghyuck in that photo, one hand under each of his armpits, smiling at Donghyuck at the edge of the frame.

Johnny still feels like he is at a loss for words. His whole downfall last night was the way the words he wished he could have said had done nothing but choke him. It had been so bad, apparently, that it continued to plague him into the next morning.

Donghyuck grips Johnny’s pant leg and Johnny reaches out to hold his arm, keeping him steady while he lifts himself up the line of Johnny’s leg on unsteady footing.

“You good, Hyuckie?” Johnny tests his voice. It sounds disembodied from the rest of him; Johnny knows it’s his voice but it’s almost like it’s not coming out of his mouth.

Donghyuck gurgles. Johnny smiles, weak and small, and pets Donghyuck’s head.

“I’m gonna make a phone call,” he tells Donghyuck. “Don’t bump your head again, okay?” Donghyuck babbles some more, punctuates it by making a fart noise. “Yeah, exactly,” Johnny says.

*

Johnny is, quite frankly, not very privy to Jaehyun’s comings and goings these days.

He’s pretty sure Jaehyun took the engineering job at Ten and Taeyong’s dance studio, because he’s a good friend, and Johnny is also pretty sure he’s midway through another project at the moment as well. He keeps himself busy, obviously. He still helps with Donghyuck on occasion, and Donghyuck likes him a lot, but, especially since Taeyong started hanging around, he had been required less and less.

(There was one day that is burned into Johnny’s memory: he had stepped out for emergency baby wipes and left Jaehyun in charge of Donghyuck. Jaehyun had offered, honestly, and this was when Johnny was getting better at letting other people handle his baby.

He worries he may have lost progress after the whole emergency room incident. But regardless.

Johnny had left Donghyuck with Jaehyun, and when he got home with baby wipes and two Red Bulls for Jaehyun’s trouble, Jaehyun and Donghyuck were both asleep on the couch. Jaehyun pressed against the back cushions, as flush as he could, so Hyuck could have enough room to sleep soundly on his back beside him. One of Jaehyun’s arms had been curled around Donghyuck, keeping him close and safe.

Johnny had almost wanted to take a picture, but he decided the moment was too precious for it. Too precious to be disturbed by even photographing it.

Johnny let the pair of them wake of their own volition, and when Jaehyun rose from the couch, bleary-eyed and hair a mess, Johnny didn’t say anything. All he did was smile.)

All this to say: when Jaehyun comes through their front door with a few yards of rolled up audio engineering wires, Johnny is not expecting it.

He doesn’t look rushed — not as if he had planned to come and go as quickly as possible, busy with all those things people find themselves busy with before they have kids. Instead, he looks tired. The way people no longer have to hold their shoulders up once they get home after a long day.

Donghyuck is playing at Johnny’s feet, banging a plastic hammer against plastic wood, a trio of holes in it filled by cartoonishly large plastic screws. Jaehyun takes a minute to get settled into the apartment: kick off his shoes and hang up his jacket, deposit his array of wires into his bedroom, run a hand through his hair to mess it up after styling it this morning. Jaehyun’s halfway through a banana when he plops onto the floor in front of Hyuck, breaking off a piece of it from the bottom and offering it to Johnny’s baby.

“He just ate. I don’t know if he’ll take it,” Johnny says, and then Donghyuck immediately proves him wrong by taking the piece of banana right out of Jaehyun’s hands and sticking it directly into his mouth. “Never mind, I guess.”

Jaehyun chuckles. The moment feels devastatingly normal, devastatingly cheerful. It is a sharp contrast to the rest of Johnny’s day, with the weight of melancholy that still bends, and threatens to break, Johnny’s rib cage. There was a time when things were just this simple. When Johnny focused on being a dad, and occasionally people helped him, and that was it. And it was easy.

Only, no. That’s not true. Johnny’s relationship with Taeyong, how that had translated into Taeyong’s relationship with Donghyuck, had been loaded from the start. It had never been simple; it had been complicated in ways that they had chosen to ignore. And what good had that done? Maybe Johnny had thought if he ignored the problem it would go away. But it hadn’t — it never went away. Even when things had been good, when Taeyong and Johnny had been something beyond friends for that brief moment of bliss, the problem had just getting worse. The problem that they had been ignoring. Because feelings you ignore never go away — they build and build and build, and you can tell yourself it’s not happening as much as you want, it doesn’t matter.

In the end, they always becomes the match, burned down to the end.

It is not that Johnny began to lack the words to describe him and Taeyong; it is that he never possessed them in the first place. And he had decided that was okay, he thought perhaps the words would come to him. Maybe they were close to it, at some point, but then their relationship became something ever-changing. The context kept rewriting itself and then it was just impossible to keep up. So maybe they bred this miscommunication into their relationship from the beginning, maybe they built a ship to wreck.

Johnny doesn’t like to think of it like that, like they were predestined for this from the start. For one, it absolves him of responsibility he does not believe he deserves to be absolved of. For two, it colours all Johnny’s memories of Taeyong with this tinge of sadness, even the purely happy ones, and he can’t have that. That will break his heart even worse. No matter how brief what he and Taeyong had was, no matter how quickly it slipped away, it was good and wonderful and beautiful while it lasted, and Johnny can’t ruin it like that.

“I saw Taeyong today,” Jaehyun says. Johnny feels ice spread throughout his veins. He touches Donghyuck’s back with the side of his foot, just to feel his warmth. Just to ground himself in the moment. To remind himself that no, not everything has left. “I didn’t ask him about anything. I won’t ask you either but he — he looked upset.”

Johnny nods slowly. Donghyuck looks between his dad and his Uncle Jaehyun. The corner of the bandage on his forehead is beginning to curl upwards.

“Johnny,” Jaehyun sighs. “I just — I don’t want you to think I’m getting, like, I don’t know. I didn’t want to be right. About all of it. I don’t like that I was right.”

“Yeah,” Johnny replies. It doesn’t make anything feel better; it soothes no burns, it dresses no wounds. But it does not make anything worse, and Johnny supposes that that is worth something. “Me neither, man. Me neither.”

*

Night begins to creep through the half-open curtains of Johnny’s living room, spreading grey light across the floor. Johnny attempts to rock his baby to sleep as he paces around his apartment.

Donghyuck is sleepy enough to quietly tuck his head into Johnny’s neck and stay quiet, but not tired enough for his eyelids to start to droop yet. Johnny bounces him up and down lightly, rubs his back between little pats against it. He speaks to Donghyuck in hushed tones, talking about everything and anything and nothing that really matters.

“Tomorrow we’re going to meet your mom for a little bit, okay, Hyuckie? Or — I don’t know if she wants me to call her your mom. We’ll have to talk about it. But we’re gonna go meet someone who is very special to our lives because she gave you to me, okay, baby? She gave you to your daddy.”

Johnny speaks to Donghyuck in a mix of English and Korean, and has since the beginning. He’s hoping Donghyuck will pick up both languages the same way Johnny did. But whenever he refers to himself, in front of Donghyuck, he calls himself _daddy_ in English. He’s not sure why. Just something that he did once that stuck, reinforced when Taeyong started to do it too, and eventually so did everyone else.

Donghyuck lifts his head. He looks at Johnny for a few minutes, the two of them stood still in the hallway between the living room and Hyuck’s nursery. Then, he reaches his chubby little hand out and places it against the bridge of Johnny’s nose.

“Da,” he says, and he lifts his hand and drops it against Johnny’s face again. Almost like a slap, but much more gentle, something to communicate to Johnny that Donghyuck is talking about _him_ when he says, “da. Dada.”

“Oh,” Johnny says, and he would be crying if he didn’t feel like a dried-up well of emotions.

Hyuck drops his hand, then. He leans over Johnny’s shoulder to look around behind him, then he turns around to look down the hallway. He turns his head back and forth to look all around the apartment, face folded into a grimace. When he finally stops, he’s looking at Johnny again, and he’s saying “pa?” the same way he asks for his duck plushie when he can’t find it. Only, when he asks for his duck plushie he’s just making gibberish consonant sounds, and Johnny infers the meaning from there. This has the same tone, but Donghyuck keeps saying _pa! pa! pa!_ like it means something.

The realization hits Johnny like an icepick spinal tap, spreading freezing cold from the base of his spine outwards. He’s trying to say _appa_ , Johnny realizes. He’s trying to say _appa_ , and he’s looking for Taeyong.

“Oh, Hyuckie,” Johnny crumbles, his head dropping towards his chest. He purses his lips tight, trying to keep any sound in, and his line of sight to the floor goes blurry with tears. Donghyuck reaches out to touch the side of Johnny’s face, using both of his clumsy baby hands this time, and Johnny leans into it. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m really sorry.”

“Da,” Hyuck repeats, only this time he sounds sort of worried, and it makes Johnny’s heart hurt even more.

*

Jieun looks different.

It’s been roughly six months since Johnny last saw her. She looks better. There are less shadows around her eyes, her hair done nicely. And beyond that, she _seems_ different too. More put together, less at her rope’s end. Happy, maybe. Or at least somewhere closer to it.

Johnny supposes he must look different too, in all the opposite ways to Jieun. A little frazzled, like he’s always brimming with kinetic energy. Lack-of-sleep bruises circle Johnny’s eyes, something he thinks may never go away at this point. But — Johnny would not say he’s unhappy. Unhappiness feels too all-consuming. He’s sad, right now, but that can be temporary. If he finds the courage to try hard enough, that can be temporary.

They meet at a coffee shop not far from Johnny’s apartment. It had felt like neutral territory. There is something too loaded about going somewhere like each other’s houses. Here, it is more like equal footing.

Johnny wishes he wasn’t so nervous.

Jieun is immediately warm and welcoming. It is not unappreciated, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling sort of odd.

“I really wanted to say thank you,” she starts. “For everything, in general, but also for doing this. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you to make a decision about this.”

“You’re his mom,” Johnny parrots the reasoning he’s given everyone, including himself, many times.

Jieun shakes her head. “But I’m not.”

“What?”

“I’m not his mom, Johnny,” she repeats. “I’m his _mother_ , biologically, but I’m not his mom the way that you’re his dad.”

The truth is, Jieun’s right. It felt unfair for Johnny to make that distinction himself, to rip her from a role he wasn’t sure if she wanted or not, but now that Jieun’s said it herself — well, it’s different. Now it feels like an explicit truth.

“You’re the one who takes care of Donghyuck,” Jieun continues. She gestures to Johnny’s lap, where Donghyuck sits, facing away from Jieun, curled into Johnny’s chest. He’s been playing strange with people lately, not nearly as social as he used to be, suddenly very aware of the people around him he doesn’t know — all the baby books Johnny’s read have told him that’s normal, but he also worries he made it worse with the injury from a few days ago. “You make sure he has everything he needs. You make sure he’s happy. You’re his family and I’m not.”

Jieun takes a long sip of the tea in the mug sitting in front of her. Johnny says nothing. In his arms, Donghyuck peeks with one eye at Jieun.

“And I don’t think I have to be his family to be a special part of his life. If that’s okay with you, obviously,” Johnny nods along with what Jieun’s saying. “But I think — calling me his family, just because I helped make him — I think that’s unfair to you, and to the other people in Donghyuck’s life who have done more for him more than I ever have. The other people who care about him, besides you and me.”

They flit across Johnny’s mind in flashes: Jaehyun and Donghyuck, asleep on the couch together. Ten, wiping the banana off of Donghyuck’s face. Taeyong, doing _everything_. The words _I love your baby_ , the words _our baby_.

Johnny realizes, suddenly, the way he has been clinging to this over simplified version of family. When did his visions of it unconsciously shift from Taeyong, to this traditional version that included Dad, Mom, Son. He hadn’t even realized he had. It’s like the blur of the family photo in his head has come into focus, just now, listening to Jieun, and Johnny doesn’t recognize anyone in the photo.

That’s why he couldn’t answer when Taeyong questioned him about if he’d ever go back to Jieun. When Taeyong had desperately, brokenly begged Johnny to soothe some insecure part of him, Johnny had not known how. He turned away from the question. He pretended it did not exist. He did all the wrong things. And now that Jieun has said this — that she wants to be Hyuck’s life, but not in the capacity of being his mom — well, it’s shifted something. It’s spread rays of sunlight over the fog of Johnny’s brain. It’s ushered in a clarity Johnny did not realize he needed.

“I,” Johnny tries to speak, but his mouth is dry and his throat is tight. He clears his throat, tries again. “I don’t know what to say.”

Jieun smiles. She places her elbows on the table, leans her chin on intertwined hands. “I’d love for you to tell me about Donghyuck.”

Johnny does. He explains his likes and dislikes. He tells her about milestones: the first time he ate solid foods, when he learned to crawl. When he started being able to pull himself up into standing position, when he learnt how to hold his own bottle. Jieun listens to all of it and, slowly, Donghyuck seems to warm up to her. He shifts in Johnny’s lap so he is no longer hiding his face and, eventually, he reaches across the table and attempts to grab Jieun’s keys. She offers him her hand instead, and he grips two of her fingers in his fist.

“He said his first word last night, actually,” Johnny tells her. “Or words, I guess. Two different words that kind of mean the same thing.”

Jieun hums. She waves at Donghyuck and he waves back. “He’s really smart, isn’t he?”

Johnny swells with pride. “He is. Everyone says so. I’ve got the smartest baby ever.”

There is a split second where Johnny worries he’s said the wrong thing; thet ascribing such a possessive statement to Donghyuck with Jieun might not be welcome yet.

But all Jieun does is chuckle and say, “yeah, I think you do.”

*

Time passes. Donghyuck turns nine months and Jaehyun buys him a little toy walker to get Donghyuck moving on his feet. He likes to bounce up and down, mostly, and he still loves _The Lion King_ and hates berries. They go to the doctor and they take out the stitches in Donghyuck’s forehead, but the scar remains. It is bright pink, though the doctor says it’ll fade over time. A lot of things feel different and a lot of things feel the same.

Johnny knows what he needs to do but lacks the courage to do it.

It is 3AM. Johnny’s baby is asleep and so is his roommate. He thinks of the different ways to occupy spaces; that it is not always physical, that sometimes it is merely a presence. A suggestion of something that might have existed tangibly, in the past, or perhaps in a parallel universe. Johnny thinks of the difference between empty spaces and full ones, how a space can be mostly full and be missing just one thing, something crucial, and just that can make it feel hollow.

Johnny considers the nature of spaces, and then he thinks about Taeyong.

He doesn’t know why he does it. He knows it will serve no purpose but to upset him. And still, his thoughts circle around and around Taeyong, as they are Saturn and its rings, respectively. Johnny thinks of Taeyong until he is sick with the sadness of it, and then he thinks of Taeyong some more.

And then Johnny is pressing his phone to his ear and dialing Taeyong’s number.

(The thing about relationships is the breaks are hardly ever clean. Johnny cannot remember a single person he let leave his life easily. Where they seemingly flipped a switch and went from being people who knew each other to people who didn’t. That’s not how things _work_. Feelings do not operate under those parameters. You cannot cut their strings and be done with it.

How unfair it was, then, for Taeyong to pull himself so thoroughly from Johnny’s life and leave nothing behind.)

Taeyong doesn’t pick up. Of course he doesn’t.

The living room is very, very dark. The only light comes from the light above the stove in the kitchen, and the stripes of blue that fall through Donghyuck’s cracked open door, a symptom of the night light plugged in near his crib. Taeyong’s voicemail beeps, ready for Johnny to record his message, and Johnny feels very alone.

“Hi, Taeyong,” Johnny starts, unsure of what he’s really going to say, but unable to keep himself from speaking anyway. “I — it’s Johnny. I’m sure you knew that already. I was just — I was just wondering how you were doing.”

Johnny tries to imagine Taeyong’s responses to what he’s saying. He tries to imagine Taeyong’s face listening to this message. There is not enough clarity, even in Johnny’s imagination. Taeyong ends up blurred, fuzzed around the edges.

“I don’t know why I’m calling you,” Johnny admits. He picks at a loose thread on the couch. Across the floor, Donghyuck’s toys are scattered. “I think I — I miss you. I miss you so much, Taeyong.”

There had been this veneer to the way Johnny was speaking before, but now that’s gone. Now there is only raw emotion, breaking open Johnny’s heart and spilling it all over his ribcage and his own hands.

“My baby misses you too,” Johnny sighs. “I know that — that’s not very fair, for me to say that. I’m sorry. But he does. He’s so big now. It hurts my heart sometimes, to think how much he’s grown up.” Johnny scrubs a hand over his face. It feels damp when he pulls it away. “I’m rambling right now. I’m sorry. I shouldn't have called. But — Taeyong,” Johnny screws his eyes shut, like he’s bracing for impact. The impact of what he’s about to say. “There’s some stuff I’d really like to say to you in person. If you’d be willing to see me, I’d really like to talk to you about some stuff. Okay.”

Johnny not sure what to say, not sure how to end this natural disaster — tornado, earthquake, tsunami, it could be any number of those — he’s put himself squarely in the centre of. So, all he does is repeat, “I miss you,” and then he hangs up.

*

Lament and embarrassment settle into Johnny by the morning.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep Johnny gets. He doesn’t crawl into bed until 4AM and by 8AM Donghyuck is yelling emphatically through the baby monitor, becoming more and more annoyed. Maybe it’s the way the living room looks in the daylight, and how all Johnny can think of when he looks at the couch is how he had pulled at the threads of it while he left Taeyong that message. Maybe it’s the amount of times he runs over what he said in his own head, catching all the ways his voice might have exposed him, his cadence made things obvious. All the ways the things he’s said were not fair to subject Taeyong to, but that didn’t make them any less the truth.

Johnny doesn’t even sit on the couch, afraid it might be poisoned with residual emotions.

Instead, Johnny feeds Donghyuck his breakfast with the both of them sitting on the floor. Donghyuck bangs a plastic pot and pan together, something Johnny’s mom had sent over.

It is around 10AM when Jaehyun stumbles out of his room and into the kitchen without even pausing at Donghyuck and Johnny on the floor. He makes a lot of noise, for a little bit, and then he’s emerging from the kitchen with his leftovers from last night's dinner.

Jaehyun takes the couch without issue. Johnny envies him for it.

Jaehyun and Donghyuck have both finished their breakfasts when Jaehyun finally says something.

“I heard you on the phone last night,” Jaehyun says and, god, Johnny really, really wishes he hadn’t.

“Yeah, well,” Johnny shrugs. No one would buy that he feels nonchalant about any of this. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Jaehyun does not reply immediately. They lapse into temporary silence. Or, as silent as things can be with a nine-month old banging his toys together on the floor.

Then:

“I know I said some things,” Jaehyun sounds guilty. He scratches the back of his neck. “I know I — I was trying to help. I know I didn’t really help at all but — Johnny?”

Johnny doesn’t look up. He watches his baby, humming his response so Jaehyun knows he’s listening.

“Johnny, I think you love him.”

Johnny lets the words wash over him; he expects something like shock to jump out at him. He expects a theoretical bucket of ice water tipped over his head. But it’s something much more comfortable that washes over him. Something like a warm blanket, something like home.

“Yeah. I think I do,” he replies, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I think my baby loves him too.”

“You should tell him,” Jaehyun says it like a suggestion, but Johnny doesn’t really think it is. “If — no, _when_. When he wants to talk to you about things, you should tell him.”

He’s right. Johnny should tell Taeyong. His only worry is that, now, when things have finally come into sharp focus, that it might be too late.

*

Johnny catches himself between a rock and a hard place: he leaves the voicemail, and part of him hopes Taeyong will never hear it. The other part feels the lack of any kind of response — any _acknowledgement_ from Taeyong — like a knife inserted firmly in the space between two ribs.

Nevertheless, days pass, and every time one does without Taeyong attempting to contact Johnny, Johnny feels a mixture of relief and hurt.

He waits. He does it because there is no other option, but still. He waits.

Time, at least, offers some respite as it stretches endlessly.

Donghyuck takes his first steps. He does not fall and bust his head open again, which soothes some anxiety in Johnny. The way Donghyuck reaches his arms out for Johnny to catch him, the way he can’t contain his open-mouthed smile gives Johnny that distinct heart full feeling he was afraid he had forgotten.

Jieun shows the family photos Johnny sent her of him and Donghyuck to her friend who’s just gotten engaged, and then the friend asks Johnny to shoot her engagement photos. It feels nice for Johnny to work on something like that, something that breaks up the monotony of his hours spent freelancing and taking care of his baby. Jieun’s friend loves the photos and when she asks Johnny if she can recommend him to other people, Johnny shrugs and says sure. Maybe he could do this more often. The extra money is nice.

Everything is not hopeless all the time. Johnny can’t decide if that’s better, or if the moments of joy offset the moments without it and make them even worse.

Johnny just wants Taeyong to call him.

It has been almost a month and half since they’ve last spoken when he finally does.

*

It happens when Johnny is least expecting it: mid-afternoon, in the middle of the week. Donghyuck is napping in his crib and Johnny’s catching up on some work. He feels his phone vibrate incessantly in his pocket, and he answers it without even pausing to see who might be calling.

“Hello?” Johnny asks, blissfully ignorant.

“Hey, Johnny,” and the sound of Taeyong’s voice sends a shock wave up Johnny’s spine. Suddenly, he has rapt attention and he is on edge.

“Taeyong,” Johnny breathes. A million words crash together in his head; presenting themselves quickly, and colliding and breaking apart faster than Johnny can say any of them. He wishes he could desperately save a single one from oblivion but he can’t. It doesn’t work.

Instead, it is Taeyong who keeps speaking. “I’m calling — I’m calling because you asked. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it took me awhile to call.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Johnny replies, voice soft and quiet. “It’s okay. How — how have you been?”

Taeyong scoffs. “I’ve been okay. We just had our showcase at the dance studio. Summer classes start next month.”

“That’s good, Taeyong. That’s really good.” Johnny doesn’t know what else to say.

“How — how have you been?”

Johnny wants to say _good_. It would make things so much easier if he could just say _good_. He wishes he could. But instead, “I miss you,” falls from Johnny’s mouth before he can stop it. “I miss you. And so does my baby. Donghyuck misses you.”

Johnny can hear Taeyong sigh, long and uneven. “Johnny,” he says, and it sounds like he’s pleading. “That’s not fair.”

“But it’s the truth,” Johnny insists.

“That doesn’t mean you should say it.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny croaks, throat dry. Chest feeling like he’s swallowed a lit book of matches, and it’s only a matter of time until it consumes him whole. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“Goodbye, Johnny,” is Taeyong’s reply. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

Johnny doesn’t even try to stop him from hanging up.

*

The next day, it rains.

When Taeyong shows up on Johnny’s doorstep, it is in a rain-slick jacket and his bangs damp and plastered against his forehead.

Johnny isn’t expecting him — he hadn’t been expecting anything after the phone call yesterday. But here Taeyong is: in Johnny’s space, surrendered to the elements, looking open and vulnerable and beautiful. There is a split second where all Johnny can do is look at Taeyong. Rememorize his face, correct mistakes Johnny had made while he was imagining him, reaffirm all the things Johnny had right.

“I wanted to talk,” Taeyong tells him. “In person.”

Johnny lets him inside. Donghyuck is in the living room, very expertly taking apart puzzles and doing his best to put them back together. Taeyong gets this sort of sad smile on his face when he sees Donghyuck. And Donghyuk — well, Donghyuck sort of lights up. As soon as he notices Taeyong he crawls right up to him, gurgling excitedly.

“Hey Hyuckie,” Taeyong says quietly. Johnny doesn't think Taeyong’s crying, but he scrubs an eye with his fist.

Eventually, Donghyuck gets Taeyong to sit on the couch, motivated by Donghyuck crawling back to his toys and turning back to look at Taeyong expectantly. Donghyuck presents Taeyong with toy after toy, now, and Taeyong indulges every one of his whims.

Johnny wants to tell him. He wants to tell Taeyong everything, about all of it, and he wants to tell him so badly. It could be so easy. He’s been thinking about it for weeks now, the words — _I love you_ — and how they might sound coming out of his mouth. How they might sound when Taeyong hears them, understands them, processes them. Johnny could do it. He could do it right now.

Only — something about the moment feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like the right time. Maybe it’s unfair to Taeyong to do this all at once. He already seems emotionally vulnerable, just from the way he interacts with Donghyuck. Johnny doesn’t need to unload it all now. He thinks, if anything, that just might make everything worse.

But Johnny can’t help it, he needs to say something. But he can’t say _I love you_ , so instead he says:

“He loves you,” he has to say. “My baby loves you.”

_I love you_ , Johnny doesn’t say, because he doesn’t think that would be fair. He’ll say it, eventually, because it’s true — but not right now. That’s not what Taeyong needs to hear right now.

“You can’t say that,” Taeyong admonishes, voice wet and eyes wet and everything about the moment is so sorrowful. “That’s not fair. That’s not fair because — I care about him. So much, Johnny. But he’s not mine. He can’t be mine. You’re each other’s family and I don’t — I don’t fit.”

“You could,” Johnny counters. “You could fit with us.”

“I’m so scared, Johnny,” Taeyong confesses, heart pinned to his sleeve and bleeding everywhere. “I’m _terrified_. What if I let myself — what if I let myself have this thing I want so much, what if let myself have a family, and then — and then I get the rug pulled out from under me.”

“You’re already our family,” Johnny replies, no trace of hesitation colouring his voice. “We already picked you. Me and Donghyuck both picked you. All you gotta do is pick us back.”

Donghyuck crawls up to Taeyong’s feet and tugs emphatically on Taeyong’s pant leg, like he knows. He looks up at Taeyong with his big, wide open eyes. Like he knows.

“You’re right,” Taeyong acquiesces. Donghyuck tugs again, whines, and just like that — a very explicit piece of evidence towards what Johnny was just saying — Taeyong picks Donghyuck up, and he quiets. “I’m already too far gone, aren’t I?”

Johnny wants to say _yes_. He wants to sit next to Taeyong on the couch and kiss him, gently, and in a way that would tell Taeyong everything he needs to know that would never be done justice with words. So maybe Johnny is selfish. So maybe he wants to keep all the people he loves to himself, as close as possible, until the world forgets about them and they forget about the world in return.

But he knows he can’t say anything. He knows that Taeyong needs to make this decision for himself for it to be the right one. And if it involves Johnny’s baby, well, it has to be done very, very carefully.

But Johnny trusts Taeyong to do that. He really does.

Now safely curled into Taeyong’s arms, Donghyuck places one chubby little hand on Taeyong’s cheek. It takes him a second, and he looks like he’s concentrating very hard, but eventually Donghyuck’s mouth forms the syllable; “Pa,” he says, then one more time, more forceful, “pa!”

Taeyong’s eyes do not widen in shock — no, his expression is much softer than that, mouth only going slightly slack. “When,” his voice cracks, and so he clears his throat and tries again. “When did he start doing that?”

Johnny has to clear his throat, unlodge the lump caught in it, before he replies, “the night after we fought.”

“Oh,” Taeyong’s voice is small and now, Johnny realizes, he is crying. Silent trails of tears creating wet paths down his cheeks, some of them ending up caught by Donghyuck’s hand still on his cheek. “Hyuckie,” he’s talking to Donghyuck now, “Hyuckie, I love you so much, okay?”

Then, Taeyong turns back to Johnny, furiously wiping away tears with the back of his hand. Johnny wants nothing more to cross the distance between them, to bridge that gap, and wipe those tears away himself. He wants to put his arms around the people he loves and tell them it’s going to be okay. He wants to know he’s telling the truth when he says it. But he can’t, not yet. He can feel Taeyong’s emotions rolling off of him like white-capped waves; Taeyong needs the space, Johnny needs to take a step back. And that’s okay, no matter how hard it will be for Johnny to let him do it, it’s okay that he needs it.

He’s doing it for their family.

“I have to go,” Taeyong is saying this to Johnny now. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying no, I’m not — I’ll be back. I just need to — I need to think. And I can’t do that here. I’m sorry.”

And this is when Johnny realizes he can taste the salt of his own tears. He tries to smile through it, in a way that’s convincing. _It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay_ , he repeats the mantra in his head. Sometimes the things that hurt the most are the things we really need to do.

“It’s okay,” Johnny repeats the words of the chorus like a hymn that plays in his head to Taeyong. “It’s okay, Taeyong.”

Donghyuck does not cry when Taeyong hands him over to Johnny. He does not cry when Taeyong leaves, but not before he kisses the crown of Donghyuck’s head.

Donghyuck does not cry when Taeyong is finally gone, he and Johnny staring at the closed door. He does turn his head into Johnny’s shoulder, wrap his arms around him like he’s trying to hug him. Johnny grips him tightly, cradles the back of his head. He smells like baby shampoo and mashed carrots and _home_ and it helps temper some of the anxiety that is building and building like a sink about to overflow in Johnny’s heart.

“Don’t worry, Hyuckie,” Johnny mumbles to his baby, kissing behind his ear. “He’ll come back, okay? I promise he’ll come back.”

*

Johnny feels like they keep running circles around each other.

He tries not to let it hurt him too much. It’s hard to constantly start and stop with Taeyong, but things like this are never easy. Taeyong needs time. They have operated entirely on this push and pull, this tug of war of half-formed feelings never fully communicated. It’s made a mess of this whole thing. It’s knotted up their whole lives. And each one of them has to untangle this knot at their own pace, through their own feelings, in their own way. There is no roadmap. There is no straight line from point a to point b. It’s complicated. But to take a pause and to think about it so long — well, maybe that means it’s just going to be worth it. Maybe.

Johnny holds out hope it might.

The second time Taeyong shows up at Johnny’s door, it’s later at night. The windows in Johnny’s living room are open, letting in a flood of moonlight. Donghyuck is asleep, no sounds coming from the baby monitor besides an occasional heavy breath.

Taeyong texts Johnny before he shows up to let him know he’s coming. It gives Johnny time to brace himself, but it also gives him time to imagine every single scenario that may present itself. Good ones, bad ones. The ones that will hurt beyond repair and the ones that will send him into orbit with happiness. He’s not sure which ones he should focus on more; should he focus on the good to quell nervousness, or the bad to not get his hopes up?

In the end, he only makes a single decision before Taeyong shows up: that no matter what happens, he’s finally going to say it.

They are both quiet when Johnny lets Taeyong into his apartment. Johnny doesn’t turn on any lights. In the living room, moonlight spreads across Taeyong’s skin like he’s dripping with it, caught in his eyelashes and the sharp corners of his face.

“I’m sorry I came so late,” Taeyong starts. “I just — it’s hard. To think clearly and talk when — when Donghyuck is around.”

Johnny nods. He understands. It must be hard for Taeyong, to have torn himself away from someone he felt could never deserve this kind of abandonment, just because Johnny was an idiot. Just because Johnny was a coward who couldn’t find the words. That’s why they couldn’t have done this the other day; seeing Donghyuck had been too overwhelming for Taeyong.

But now Donghyuck is asleep. It is only Johnny and Taeyong and the moon.

“I just,” Taeyong sighs. His fingers are knotted together. It reminds Johnny of another conversation they had on this couch, just before Taeyong kissed him. “I want to get it all out on the table, okay?”

“Okay, Taeyong,” Johnny agrees. “Say whatever you need to say.”

“I never regretted anything about — about how we started, or what was going on between us, I just wanted you to know that.” Taeyong keeps occasionally looking Johnny in the eye, and then looking away. But it’s okay. “It was — It was better than anything I could have expected, when I first started coming around. And I loved all of it.”

Taeyong bites his lip. “But then,” he continues. “But then I just couldn’t stop worrying. About everything. You started talking to Jieun again and you were, like, well within your rights to do that. But I couldn’t help the way it made me feel — it made me feel so insecure, Johnny. About everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny says quietly. “I should have realized. I should have realized and said something. Before it blew up like it did.”

“But what were you even going to say?” Taeyong replies. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that in a — it wouldn’t have been right of me. To ask you to stop talking to Hyuck’s mom, just because I had developed some complex about it.”

“She’s not his mom,” Johnny corrects, the same way Jieun did. Taeyong looks confused for a moment, so Johnny explains. “I mean, she is, biologically. But that’s not the relationship she has with him. That’s not the relationship she wants to have with him. I met with her and we talked about it. She’s not Donghyuck’s mom the way I’m his dad. The way — the way he might have a relationship with you. If that’s something you wanted.”

“Johnny,” Taeyong breathes out at the suggestion, voice shaky. He takes a moment to breathe before he keeps speaking. “It just all felt too good to be true, after a while. There was that night — that night you called Donghyuck _our baby_ and I thought, well, maybe he could be. Why not? I love Donghyuck so much. I care about him so much. I’d — I’d do anything for your baby, Johnny. I thought that that had to count for something. And then you just kept doing things that made me feel like we could be a family or maybe — maybe we already were.”

Johnny wants to say _we were, we were a family the whole time_ but he doesn’t want to interrupt. Taeyong said he wanted to get it all out on the table, so Johnny lets him.

“But then the insecurity would just come creeping back, no matter what.” Taeyong shakes his head. “And I never said anything because I thought, well, how selfish of me. You were raising a baby and trying your best and you had never _done_ anything to make me feel that way so who was I to be upset? And then that just festered and festered until that day I blew up at you for emailing Jieun. Which I shouldn’t have done, by the way. I know that now.”

Johnny can’t help it — he lets his fingers brush against the outer part of Taeyong’s knee, desperate to offer him some small comfort. “It’s okay, Taeyong,” Johnny tells him. “You don’t need to be forgiven for feeling like that.”

Taeyong does not flinch away from Johnny’s touch. It startles him, slightly, and then he stares at his knee for a brief moment. Then, he’s rubbing at his eyes again. The way he always does when he’s trying to rub the tears out of them.

“And then Donghyuck got _hurt_ that same day and I felt — I felt so guilty, Johnny. How could I let that happen to him? And the entire time we were trying to help him I kept thinking about how that would have never happened if you had been around. That you just have that innate sense in you, as Donghyuck’s dad, and I don’t have that. Then, the — the nurse at the hospital and I just — I couldn’t even imagine it anymore. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t imagine us as a family anymore.”

“Taeyong, that’s not true,” Johnny admonishes him gently. This time he puts his whole hand on Taeyong’s knee and leaves it there. They’ve shifted closer together on the couch. “Taeyong, he would have gotten hurt with anyone. Even me. That’s what kids do. They get hurt. And I — I should have said something in the hospital. I should have told them you were family and that you needed to come with us. I was just so overwhelmed and I — I don’t know. But I know I should have corrected them. Me and Donghyuck, we both think of you as family. I should have told you that.”

“God,” Taeyong presses his face into his hands. “I don’t wanna fucking cry. I’ve done enough crying. I’m over it.”

“You can cry if you need it, Taeyong,” Johnny presses himself even closer, wraps his arm around Taeyong’s shoulders. “I love you, okay? I’m sorry it took me so long to realize but you’re our family and we love you. Donghyuck and I both love you.”

When Johnny says it, it feels like coming home after a very, very long drive. A drive where you left somewhere unfamiliar, drove a long way you had never driven before, and pulled into your driveway in the early morning. The way your home welcomes you the moment you step past the threshold. The way your home might hold you in its embrace, the way it reminds you it’s still exactly where you left it, waiting for you. Telling Taeyong he loves him feels to Johnny like entering a space that is intrinsically his, woven into the very fabric of it. The way a tree might grow roots and survive, stuck in place, for hundreds of years.

“Oh, Johnny,” Taeyong mumbles. He collapses into Johnny’s chest, then, and Johnny wraps both his arms around him. Johnny knows he’s crying now, can feel dampness soaking into his shirt.

They stay like that for a while. Taeyong’s shoulders shake a little bit and Johnny holds him and pets his hair. He waits for Taeyong, because he can. Because what’s a little bit longer after all this time. When Taeyong lifts his head, his eyes are red, but he’s smiling. Just a small smile, but still.

“You’re our family, Taeyong,” Johnny reaffirms. He presses their foreheads together. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Taeyong replies.

Johnny kisses him because he can. Because eventually, it was all worth it. Because Taeyong is family, and he is someone Johnny loves, and someone Johnny’s baby loves, and he is _home_. He has always been there, the safe haven Johnny needed even when he hadn’t know that he needed it. And now Johnny gets to repay the favour — he gets to remind Taeyong, every day, that they’re a family.

For the first time in a month and half, Taeyong falls asleep next to Johnny in his bed. And in the morning, they’ll both wake up with Donghyuck. They’ll make him breakfast, and Taeyong will make Johnny coffee, and Johnny will order breakfast from the cafe down the street. They’ll be like any other family any other morning. And that will all be so familiar, it will all be something they are so used to. But it will also be different. Not in any obvious way, but there will be something charging the air. There will be something fundamentally shifted about the way they carry themselves.

So it will be different. But only in the best possible way.

*

There is a little bee buzzing in Johnny’s ear this morning. A little, incessant bee pulling him from blissful sleep. Or, the little bee is not so little. Not anymore. The little bee weighs enough for Johnny to struggle to breathe a little under the full weight pressed against his chest. And the little bee is buzzing in Johnny’s ear, and it is saying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”

Oh, Johnny realizes, so it’s not a little bee. It’s a little duck.

A hand, one that is not Johnny’s little duck’s hand, reaches out and pinches his side.

Taeyong’s voice comes from the mound of blankets on the bed beside Johnny, thick and rough with sleep. “Your son is awake,” Taeyong mumbles. “Your son is awake and he is being loud and it is my day off.”

Johnny reaches over, eyes still closed, little duck in his ear still calling for him, and blindly pinches Taeyong in return. “I thought we agreed before 8AM he’s your son.”

“Only on weekdays,” Taeyong counters, triumphant when he declares, “it’s Saturday.”

With a sigh, Johnny relents, and finally opens his eyes to find Donghyuck already staring into them.

“You awake, Daddy?” Donghyuck asks, then he puts his hands on either side of Johnny’s face and smooshes his cheeks together.

“Yes, I’m awake, baby,” Johnny tries his best to reply, but it’s hard with his three year old pinching his face up. From his cocoon of blankets, turned away from the both of them, Taeyong laughs.

“I’m hungry,” Donghyuck says, expression of utmost sincerity on his face. Like this is the most important thing that he’s ever asked Johnny for. “B’eckfast?”

“You got it, Hyuckie. I’ll make you breakfast.”

Donghyuck is so elated at the confirmation that yes, his dad will in fact provide him with food, that he’s sliding off the bed, faster than Johnny can keep up with, and bolting out of the bedroom and down the hall towards the kitchen. His sleep shirt has little angel wings sewn onto the back of it (a gift from Mark, who Donghyuck is always on his best behaviour for — neither Johnny or Taeyong would invest in such a mockery of the sanctity of angels) and they bounce up and down as Donghyuck scurries away.

Johnny allows himself a moment with Taeyong, leaning over to kiss the side of his face, skin soft and warm as always. “Does Appa want _b’eckfast_?” Johnny says it the way Donghyuck does.

Taeyong sighs and burrows into the sheets. “Yes,” he replies, “Appa wants _b’eckfast_.”

Johnny smiles. He kisses Taeyong one more time, because he can’t help it, and then follows his son out into the kitchen.

There are a great many things that can change in a short number of years and, still, a great many things stay exactly the same.

Johnny still lives in a three bedroom apartment, but it’s a different three bedroom apartment now. This one is bigger and Johnny does not share it with Jaehyun, but with Taeyong. Donghyuck’s nursery no longer has a crib in it, instead it’s got a big boy bed. It’s overflowing with plushies — but Donghyuck’s little duck from infancy always takes the centre spot, balanced on a pillow like a king on a throne. There are a few photos on a shelf in Donghyuck’s room, too: the first photo Johnny ever sent to Jaehyun, when he first got Donghyuck and, next to that, a photo of Donghyuck and Jieun from Donghyuck’s first birthday. The final, and largest framed photo, is the photo they took in the park that day — the least professional looking one, the one where nothing about it is organized but it radiates warmth and love regardless.

The third bedroom is both a studio and an office, and serves to help Johnny retain his dual hustle of occasional freelance producing and occasional freelance photography.

Donghyuck still loves _The Lion King_ and bananas. His hatred of rice cereal has translated into a dislike of plain rice, though he’ll eat it on occasion, if he’s feeling like being nice to his parents. He’s still the smartest kid Johnny’s ever known, but he suspects he might be a little biased, and now that Donghyuck can sort of string sentences together he never really stops talking.

Johnny loves him so much. Every day he thinks _this is it, this is how much I can love my baby, there’s nowhere else for all this love to go_ and yet, every single day, Johnny finds more room to fit more love.

Johnny parks Donghyuck on the couch with _The Lion King_ and goes to make them banana pancakes because they’re Hyuck’s favourite.

“Daddy!” Donghyuck calls from the couch. Johnny can picture his little face peering over the back of it, hand curled around the cushions. “It’s your part soon.”

Johnny dutifully quotes _that hairball is my son, and your future king_ , like he does most mornings. Donghyuck is delighted, like he is every time, clapping his hands together and saying thank you.

Taeyong emerges sleepily from the bedroom just as Johnny’s finishing up breakfast. Johnny hands Taeyong a cup of orange juice, and then Taeyong thanks him with a soft kiss. They join Donghyuck on the couch, seating themselves on either side of him, and Taeyong dutifully cuts his pancakes and feeds him pieces between breaks for Donghyuck to sing along with all the songs.

The morning light is soft and warm. Johnny’s heart feels soft and warm, too, no matter how many times they do this over and over.

It’s their morning routine at this point. Sometimes Taeyong gets up with Donghyuck, sometimes Johnny does. Sometimes they are rushed, because Taeyong needs to get out the door, or Johnny does, or they both do. Sometimes they are lazy and spend too long sitting on the couch before getting started with their day. But the bare bones of it are always the same. Johnny loves it. He’s never been so thankful for the methodical domesticity he’s developed with the people he loves.

Every day, Johnny reminds Taeyong he’s their family. They are Donghyuck’s parents to anyone who ever asks, _I’m Donghyuck’s father, and this is his other father_. Donghyuck calls Taeyong _Appa_ , and has since it was one of the first words he learned. Every night Johnny says, “tell Appa you love him before bedtime,” and Donghyuck will always climb into Taeyong’s lap, kiss him on the cheek, and say, “I love you, Appa, G’night.”

No one doubts Taeyong’s space in Donghyuck’s life.

But just to be sure, when he and Taeyong are alone in their bed at night, Johnny will say it out loud. “I’m so glad you’re our family,” he’ll say, quiet and soft into the small space between his mouth and Taeyong’s, pressed against each other. “I’m so glad you wanted to be our family.”

It’s not always perfect, and sometimes it gets hard. But it doesn’t matter because they love each other. It doesn’t matter because they are a family.

And Johnny built his family all by himself, so he has no intentions of letting it go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end.
> 
> i just want to say thank you for all the wonderful, wonderful feedback i received on this while it was being posted. i have never done a chaptered fic like this before and it was sort of out of my comfort zone to take this project on. thank you so much to my beta, alex, who read over every single chapter of this for me, let me bounce ideas off of her and was just overall such a big help in the conception and execution of this fic. also, shout out to my bff lauren for just constantly talking to me about johnny suh and having just as bad baby fever as me. it really worked to get me to write so much more of the cute shit that happens in this fic.
> 
> also, thank you so much to literally any of you that gave this fic some of your time. it was wonderful seeing familiar faces in the comments every update. it was wonderful getting to interact with new people on twitter. i really thought a chaptered fic that i was posting while i was still in the process of writing it was going to stress me out way more -- but i honestly had a really great time and that's probably thanks to you all of you vocal readers. maybe i'll do it again some time. even if you just gave this fic kudos! or you just gave it a read! i appreciate it so much. 
> 
> anyway i can't believe it's over. i already miss baby hyuck so much. i hope you enjoyed how this all wrapped up. i hope i could make sticking through all of this worth it. <3 can't say enough but seriously, thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.

**Author's Note:**

> title from [To Build A Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUFJJNQGwhk) by The Cinematic Orchestra. Chapter titles are from [This Must Be The Place](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsccjsW8bSY) by Talking Heads.
> 
> [fic twitter](https://twitter.com/bIoodbuzzed), [personal twitter](https://twitter.com/sieepwellbeast), [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bloodbuzzed)


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